Arcanum: Legacy
by Unknown Variable X
Summary: Dad wants to save the world and Junior wants to help. Only this world is not a wasteland, but rather a thriving nation everybody is about to start fighting over. Rated T for slapstick, philosophical debate, time travel and mild profanity.
1. Small Towns, Smaller Minds

**November 6, 1870, 11:06 PM**

"His name is James, dear. No argument."

"Oh... look at him... Hello there! I'm your daddy, boy! Dad-dy!... What? What's so funny?"

"You are. Human men are always acting so strong and proud, but show them a little baby and they start making fools of themselves."

"It's my right and duty as a father to be foolish. Look, he's already smiling! That means it's working!"

"You are a card, James. Even now. Here, say hello to your son... I'm so tired."

"Of course my love... I'll be right here if you need me."

**November 6, 1871, 12:15 AM**

The door closed, and the man walked by the dim light of the oil lamps to the crib, where a frail and elderly grey haired woman was already standing.

"-Oh! Oh, I'm sorry Professor, I scarcely heard you."

"My apologies, Mrs. Jenkins. It was not my attention to startle you. How is my son?"

"Oh, he's the most contrary wee baby I've ever seen, and I've seen more than my share of little ones. One moment he's crawling around, getting into things, making a devil's mess, and the next he's standing upright and looking at me like an angel."

"He's already walking? That's... that's something I wish I could have seen." The professor settled into a chair by the crib and picked up an old book. "I suppose he's already asleep, so there's no call for a bed time story."

"What stories? That's one of them science books, a man-well, isn't it? Why do they call them man-wells if you can't draw water from them?"

The Professor stared at the book in his hands, adjusted his spectacles and peered closer. "Oh. So it is. 'Basic Engineering of Electrical Apparatus, Volume One.' I really must be more organized. Or perhaps I should just replace these oil lamps with something brighter and less dangerous. Perhaps I'll have a proposition for the mayor tomorrow."

"Well, if that'll be all, I'll be heading home for the night."

"Yes, thank you Mrs. Jenkins. You are truly invaluable to young James and myself."

"Well, I don't know about that-"

"No, really. I dare say we couldn't get along without you."

"Oh, we both know that's rubbish, Professor. But thank ye kindly for saying so."

The old lady walked out of the nursery and the Professor looked down at the infant in the crib. He could already see the telltale signs of what would, one day, become the nose and chin of his father. The pointed ears, on the other hand, didn't inspire any recognition of the mother who provided them.

"Perhaps that's for the best. Let the past bury its dead. Just don't you go anywhere, birthday boy."

**November 4, 1880, 4:30 PM**

"Hey, sharp ears!"

James turned around, hands already balling into fists. Only a handful of people in the village ever called him that and none of them had any redeeming qualities that he could find.

"What do you want, Phillip? I'm busy."

"Your book. Looks like fun to read."

"First, this book is mine. Second, since when can you read?"

The older, bigger boy stepped forward with a palpable aura of menace. Some young boys are prodigies at this. "Give it to me, half breed."

James stuffed the book in his shirt. "The book's not mine, it's my father's. If you're so interested in mechanics then go ask him."

"I'm not asking him, I'm asking you, and I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. GIVE ME THE BOOK."

James took his eyes off of Phillip just long enough to look around. Yes, the toadies were surrounding him so he couldn't run away. So it was fight or fight harder.

"You can have the book when I shove it down your throat and make you choke on it, you bastard!"

"Nobody talks to me like that you half breed dog-licker! GET HIM!"

James took the first few punches on the chin, and to his credit managed to land a flurry of kicks and jabs of his own, but that merely served to enrage a force that already outnumbered him. Within a matter of moments he was face down in the dirt, his back and head stomped repeatedly by the angry feet of pre-adolescent schoolboys, a not unfamiliar situation that got old the first time it happened.

A groping hand reached into his shirt, and pulled out the book. Phillip flipped through it, and then started ripping out handfuls of pages at a time. "It's a stupid book. Not that good. You can have it back. Come on guys!"

James carefully picked himself off the ground, spitting dirt and wiping dust from his face and clothes. He stared at the ruined book and listened to the laughter of the boys walking away, and a decision was made.

"NOW YOU'RE DEAD!"

The bully turned around just in time to meet his former victim's fist coming the other way, and when it arrived it had come too far and too fast to stop. There was a crunch as the older boy's nose broke and a thud as its owner fell to the ground, not out of pain but out of surprise. The other boys looked on in shock. James held up his fists in an open invitation for further violence.

Perhaps he wasn't expecting them all to take him up on such an invitation, because as soon as they moved towards him, he was off like a shot across the road, over fences and fields, faster than any of them could move. And in all their years of bullying James, that had never happened before.

**November 5, 1880, 9:00 PM**

"James! Can you hear me?! Where are you?!"

The wind wasn't strong enough to drown out the doctor's voice, but this fact was not clear to the doctor, especially in his current mental state. The original shock of hearing of his son's misconduct gradually turned into anger and disappointment and thoughts of appropriate disciplinary measures. Of course, the problem with sending disobedient children to bed without supper, of course, is they have to be at home where both supper and bed are.

James had not come home that night, thus completely ruining the dynamic. Dr. Cross's anger gradually metamorphosed into worry, until finally he took his overcoat and an electric lantern out into the dark and stormy night.

"James! If you can hear me, yell!"

There was no response, but the filament's glow became uneven and unsteady, and a tree limb cracked and fell. There was a grunt and Dr. Cross waved the light wildly, finding nothing but trees, more trees, and the occasional glimpse of moonlight.

"James is that you? Where are you?!"

"AAAAAGH!"

There was a thud, and the light found James, picking himself up off the ground.

"Oh thank gods! Are you alright?"

"Do I really have to answer that?"

Dr. Cross grabbed his son and shook him. "What were you thinking?! You beat up a classmate, then you run away out into the wilderness?! I have been worried sick!"

James stared stonily at his father. "But-"

"No buts! You can't do this to people, James! You can't go off half-cocked doing whatever you feel like! You have a responsibility to the people you know!"

"I WAS RESPONSIBLE!" James pulled a ruined book out of his jacket. "I was responsible for this book, and he took it and he ruined it, so I made him pay for it in blood!"

"James, it's just a book. It's a THING. People are more important than things."

James stared at his father with a combination of childhood guilt and sullen teenage defiance. "He's always been after me. Always. Because I'm different. If I hurt him bad enough he'll know not to try it again-"

"That's not how it works. Bullies are..." Dr. Cross looked around the forest, and hugged his son. "Now is not the time. You're safe. That's all that matters. Let's go home."

"...alright."

Father and son turned and headed back towards the town by the flickering electric light. Dr. Cross shook the lantern. "Battery must be losing its charge. I'll have to replace it soon but it will get us home."

"Dad...?"

"Yes?"

"...never mind. It can wait."

**November 6, 1880, 9:15 PM**

Dr. Cross flipped the switch on the lantern, which shone steady in the dark room, then flipped it off again. The battery was exchanged for another, and the process repeated. Know discernible difference. Dr. Cross scratched his chin, then shrugged and reached for the switch.

The light flickered again, and Dr. Cross froze.

"It's me, dad."

Cross turned to the doorway and saw his son, rubbing his hands nervously. "Phillip has been picking on me for years. Ever time I tried to fight back I was outnumbered. This time, I was faster. Burning up inside. I knew where every safe place to step was and exactly where to hit. And I broke his nose. And if I had the chance to do it over again, I would not change a single thing."

The doctor stared at his son and back at the lantern, still flickering.

"...hmmm. this would explain why the lantern is not behaving normally."

"...so now what?"

"Well, I don't know. It's just a flickering light right now, but it'll grow with practice."

James just stared at the floor, fidgeting.

"...on the one hand, if I tried to stop you from developing any magickal aptitude just to preserve the accuracy of my pocket watch, your mother's ghost would haunt me forever. And besides, you'd just teach yourself anyway when I'm not around. You are my son after all, and I have reason to believe you inherited my persistence and your mother's besides. On the other hand, if you're experimenting alone you're liable to blow yourselves up just as easily with magick as with a chemistry set. And the only people I know in this town who know anything at all about magick are the alchemist fellow and the wise woman, and they've been very cross with me since I built the power plant."

James looked as if he couldn't believe his ears, which he immediately checked for obstructions. "You mean you want me to learn magick?"

"Well, yes. Not to excess of course, and not to the exclusion of your normal studies. I've met a goodly number of magi who depended on force of personality and fireballs at their fingertips to make up for rudeness. I'd prefer my son learn how to get around people if he can't get along with them, as opposed to going through them."

"So... I can stay?"

"Hmmm? Sorry, what?"

"I can stay here?"

Dr. Cross looked rather puzzled, most likely because he felt puzzled. "Yes, why would you have to leave? Breaking another student's nose is not acceptable behavior but I don't think at any point in time I threatened to send you off to a military academy or any such thing, so from where did this idea come?"

James looked down at the floor again, biting on a lip nervously. "Magick and technology don't work together. You're an inventor and scientist and engineer, so if I'm using magick that means... well, I just... kind of..."

Dr. Cross pulled off his spectacles and began cleaning them on the hem of his shirt, thereby making them somewhat dirtier than they originally were. "James. You're my son, no matter what you do or how old you get or where you are. Everything else is details. Your mother was a mage as well, she was so powerful we couldn't even take a photograph of her. The plate exposure times were distorted so that each point was overexposed or underexposed but never properly timed. She laughed so hard and so long when she saw..."

The Doctor stared off into space for a few moments, then shook his head. "Well. Regardless, punching another student in the nose is not acceptable behavior. I think for the next week you shall come straight home from school without any hesitation or procrastination. Or anything else ending in the suffix '-ation.'"

**November 17, 1880, 12:20 PM**

The old lady was old. That was, to be blunt, her defining feature, followed rapidly by her unpleasant disposition. But, of the two magicians in the town she was the only one who didn't throw phials and bottles and jars at Dr. Cross when he walked through the door.

"You have no patience. The elements are drawn from the passions, but if you do not learn focus and discipline you'll never be good for anything but parlor tricks."

Very unpleasant disposition.

"Now, try again. You let your anger sustain you the first time. Which is all it was good for, fanning the inner fire. To understand the essential Force, you must understand where you end and the world begins."

"Okay, where's that?"

"There is no end, you stupid boy! You reach out and the world becomes a part of you, subject to your will. You think you end with the skin, and the first elemental spells do nothing but make changes beneath your skin. The Shielding power of Force extends your will beyond the skin, to change the world."

"Alright, I get it. Normally I can only change what's inside me, like my thoughts and feelings and physical state, but I should be able to reach out to things that aren't me and change them."

"No, no, NO! They ARE a part of you! That's how you change them!"

"Okay, now I think you're just making things up to make this hard for me."

The old woman shook her head and sighed. "You've spent too many years under your father's mistaken tutelage to understand. Technologists obsess with parts of the whole and ignore how it fits together. They'd disassemble a clock to find the tick."

"Actually wouldn't a technologist be more likely to build the clock in the first place, because they'd already know how it all fits together?"

"Do you want to learn magick or don't you?!"

"Of course I do, but your instructions don't make any sense, you keep changing your terms and definitions like you're making things up as you- waaaaait. Wait a minute. That's it, isn't it. Some sort of trick question, to make students so frustrated they just decide what reality is going to be, no matter what anyone else says about it, right?"

"Does knowing that make it easier to raise the shield?"

James thought for a moment, complete with chin scratching. "Not really."

"Then you're wrong! Now concentrate and stop wasting my time!"

**November 12, 1886, 6:35 PM**

"James, come here, I need you!"

The young man dropped a book and sprinted out into the main hallway, where his father stood in the doorway, dripping wet and playing tug of war versus the wind over who got to keep the front door. "What is it dad?"

"Power plant. Weather's getting worse. Get dressed-"

"I am dressed."

"Don't argue with me- oh. Sorry. My fault. Far too much going on. Get your coat and let's get to the power plant."

James grabbed a heavy overcoat and pulled it on, and followed his father out into the dark and stormy evening. "How bad?"

"Very bad. The river level rose three feet in the last half hour. At that rate it'll spill over the bank within the next half hour."

"Giving us thirty minutes to save the town. Rush jobs, who needs them?"

"Ours is not to question why. Ours is just to do and-"

"And get muddy."

The two men skidded to a halt at the end of the road - quite literally, as the bridge that had been there not five minutes earlier had decided to join the rising flood waters for a wild night out of town. James looked at his father, who looked around, attempting to locate an alternative means of crossing.

"Dad, remind me again why you built the power plant on the other side of the river?"

"Because the mill was already on this side and it was cheaper to use the existing dam than build a new one."

"Oh. Right. Well, the mill's a good place to start."

When the muddy father and son finally approached the mill, after several hair raising encounters with toppling trees and panicked farmers wielding sandbags, and found the building in chaos, its upper level commandeered for use as a command post for the sand-baggers in their war against the rising river.

"We need more sandbags!"

"We need more sandbags!"

"For the love of the gods we need more sandbags!"

As a very famous general once said, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

"James, find a corner out of the way, I need to find the mayor."

"I could go help the people stack sandbags."

"Yes, but none of them can help me save the power plant."

James nodded and found a spot near an unoccupied window. The river upstream was noticeably higher than James could ever remember it being, and he'd seen that view many times from the upper floors of the mill.

"Forget it Doctor Cross!" James tore his eyes away from the window and looked at the mayor, arguing in the midst of several other arguing men. "We don't have the time, we don't have the manpower, and you said it yourself, we don't have a way across the river. We have to concentrate on saving what we can!"

"Mister Mayor, you don't understand! If we don't-"

"No, YOU don't understand! I have five hundred men and I need twice that! Either grab a sandbag and get to the river or grab your son and get out of town!"

Dr. Cross walked back to where James was standing. "The fool has no idea what's at stake. The power plant was built as an extension of the dam. It's concentrating the water behind the apron. The dam is old and that's an unprecedented water level back there."

"Dam's going to go, then?"

"Any minute now. Everyone and everything downstream is going to drown."

"Wait, our house is downstream."

"That's why I wanted you here, and not there."

"Alright, we need to find a way to get across the river to the power plant and then... what? How do we reduce the pressure?"

"I don't know son. The mayor doesn't know what's at stake, but he's right, there's nothing we can do."

"Since when has he ever been right about anything?"

Dr. Cross rolled his eyes. "Now is NOT the time James."

In spite of himself, James grinned. "Since when have you been right about anything, either? Come on, I got an idea!" James ran towards the ladder to the roof of the mill, stopping just beneath the rafters to pull on the crane used to move the heavy mill stones without snapping the spines of the workers.

"What are you doing up there, Cross?!"

James didn't bother to look down at the mayor as he took the hook-and-pulley assembly off the guide ropes. "Saving the town! You're welcome!"

The storm on top of the mill was much like the storm at ground level - wet, windy, loud and cold - only more so. James twisted the bolt out of the pulley wheel and threaded the fork around the cable leading across the river, over the dam, to the power plant on the other side, and spun the bolt through the wheel again.

"James, what are you doing?! Electricity and water! I told you-"

"They're NOT mixing! I'm not completing a circuit up here! I just need to ride the pulley right down the power line and... well, I don't know what to do once I'm there but I'll think of something!"

"James, come down from there right now-"

"Down? Okay!"

"NO!"

James jumped off the roof, holding onto the hook, riding the incline from the tip of the cable tower atop the mill to the smaller power plant building across the river. James laughed a certifiably mad laugh, then looked down and his laugh died in his throat. The man-made dam was resembling a natural waterfall more and more. So entrancing was the sight, that James didn't even notice the approach of the end of the cable until he crashed into the pole.

"Ow. Ow. That was... ow."

Another short hop through a window brought him inside the power plant. It was cramped and loud, made louder by the storm, but everything was still working, after a fashion.

"Okay. I'm here. Now what the hell do I do?"

James ran around, checking the instruments he had grown up watching his father build. Nervously, he began to snap his fingers, but stopped when the lights began to flicker.

"Bad place for magick. I get it. Think, James, think. Use your head and that thing inside it."

Sparks arced from the generator and the building seemed to groan slightly from the water pressure outside. A trickle of water rushed in under the door.

"It's broken over this bank. Not that it helps. Okay... what do I have? Generator. Water wheel. Emergency steam engine. Coal. The ability to start fires with a snap of my finger. What can I make with that, besides a really depressing song?"

On a whim, James prepared the backup generator, used to tide over the town's needs while the water wheel was being repaired or the generator maintained.

"Water wheel... oh, I just got a really interesting idea."

Shoveling some coal into the boiler, James held up his left hand... and then looked up at the boiler, and over at the generator. "This isn't going to work... but I don't have a lot of time here... Okay." Another shovel out of the coal bin, and James kicked open the door and sprinted outside through ankle deep water.

"Okay, if this is going to work, and I have no real reason to expect that it will, I need to get away from the building and find something flammable... something that will keep burning even after the spell ends-"

There was an ear-rending cracking noise and James looked up at a tree falling directly towards him. A diving roll would take him out of harms way but the shovel and coal would go every which way but dry. James proceeded to half-hop to safety with a margin of error of about an inch.

"...that could have been much, much worse."

A snap of the fingers and the fallen tree was alight. James backed away and stared at it, then fished out a pocket watch from somewhere under the overcoat. The hands inside seemed frozen in place. Experimentally holding it closer to the flames, the hands twitched, but didn't progress in either direction.

"Bloody hell. Forgot to wind it. Useless."

James peered at the surface of the tree where the wood began to char. After it had spread a bit, James poked the shovel of coals into the wall of fire and the flames died. The coal steamed as rainwater evaporated.

"Please let it still be hot enough. Please? I'm really short on time. And patience. And everything but water, now that I stop and think about it-"

The smoldering tree trunk steamed and popped, then flames rose up from the char, fed by the winds. James grinned and shoveled the coal into the flames, then jogged back to the power plant. Another shovelful of coals, another trip out to the tree, and the fire was almost half as high as the original magical flame. The coals were slowly beginning to glow and the shovel bit into them.

"Now we're cooking with gas! Sort of!"

The glowing coals were dumped into the firebox, and the shovel tossed carelessly aside, smashing an electrical light in the process. James grabbed a crank on the side of the engine and began spinning it as fast as possible. Inside the firebox, a ventilation fan spun to life, fanning the smoldering coal until flames finally rose up and spread, consuming the coal. A bell rang and the crank stuttered to a stop.

"Dad, if I make it out of here alive, I am totally apologizing for making fun of the manual forced draught design." James sprinted to the electrical control box and threw several switches in a specific order. Outside, the creaking of the water wheel became even faster. James ran outside again, through now only ankle deep water. Across the river, sandbags were piling up, and for good reason, water sprayed and foamed out of the power plant water wheel.

"Reversible electrical systems. Turned the generator into a motor. Dad sure can plan ahead."

Turning to look at the river downstream, James noted the water level was rising somewhat faster than it probably should have been doing, even accounting for the actions of the water wheel. After a few moments, the young man hit himself on the head with one hand.

"Logjam, logjam! Trees crashing down, bridge gone, it must be piling up down there!"

James held up his hands, clenched them into fists, and breathed deeply. The familiar feeling of warmth spread throughout his body, and he sprinted down the river bank as fast as, well, wildfire. Fallen tree trunks were jumped with ease, although the landing was sometimes dangerously slick. Soon the power plant was obscured behind walls of foliage, and what was left of the other side of the washed out bridge passed by him in his mad flight.

And there it was, at a sharp curve in the path of the river, where sand and silt easily found places to settle and build up over time. It was another dam composed of timbers and trees and brushwood, in the worst possible spot for the lower half of the town. James took another deep breath and almost fell over. Without the inner flames of the Agility of Fire spell, the cold winds and rain came back like a hammer blow from the sky. When he held up his left hand, he saw it was shaking.

"...there are times when I hate this town. The bigots, the weather, the lack of a decent library beyond my dad's private collection, and so on and so forth. But I'm still living here. And my home is going to be flooded if you stay where you are. You chose the wrong person to mess with. Now FRY."

James held up his left hand and snapped his fingers. A pile of brush and driftwood burst into flame atop the pile, and began to spread. James looked back at the river upstream, then ran further down the bank. The water was spilling over the toppled trunks just like the other dam, but it was still made of wood. James picked a likely looking spot and snapped his fingers again.

"I really wish I knew how to cast a fireball now. I mean, if I live through this, that needs to be up at the top of my list of things to learn. What kind of mage can't cast fireballs? Unless they throw lightning bolts. Actually, a lightning bolt is fine too..."

James looked up at the stormy sky, then looked around until he found a suitably long branch. The flame walls died, leaving behind smaller fires and smoldering embers. James walked up to the closest tree trunk in the pile, and walked out onto the improvised dam, slipping and stumbling a little bit at a time, until he reached a gap where another tree trunk was stuck against it. The branch fit neatly into the gap, and James looked up to the sky.

"Alright. Time to put on a show."

James held the branch in both hands and shut his eyes. Sparks formed around him, dipping and flashing and grounding into the river, until they curved into an ever-changing globe around him. Above, several flashes of lightning were following by a rolling series of thunderclaps. James took a deep breath and the branch in his hands began to smolder and spark.

"Just a matter of finding the right-"

The world exploded and James found himself flying through the air.

"AAAAAGH THIS WAS A BAD IDEAAAAA!"

The half elf crashed heavily on the river bank as the logjam cracked apart, the water pressure finishing what the lightning strike began. James tried to stand up, and then fell down again, his face in the mud.

"...electrical potentials."

James turned over, looked up at the sky through a sparkling dome, and then closed his eyes. The dome fell into sparks and the sparks vanished.

**November 13, 1886, 8:11 AM**

James opened his eyes and immediately regretted the decision.

"Arghnfarg."

"What? James?"

"It's bright. Really bright."

James rolled out of the bed and landed heavily on the floor. Dr. Cross stumbled over and helped his son upright.

"You're alright. You're alright James. I'm here."

"Urgh. Where's here?"

"You're home, James. You saved the town. Those stunts where you rode the pulley system over the dam and called down the lightning bolt were incredibly dangerous and foolish but they worked. It's unfortunate I'm the only one who understands how serious the situation was."

"Then everything's back to normal." James tried to get up, then fell against the bed again. "You know what? I'm going to go back to sleep before I trip over anything."

"Good choice. Let me help-"

"I got it. I got it." James slithered up into the bed and collapsed. "Just gonna... something. I know what it is. Just can't remember the words. Lighting tastes like sugar."

"What was that?"

James started to snore.

**November 20, 1889, 5:05 PM**

The door opened, and James pulled off his overcoat, tossing it onto a coat rack that fell over from the impact.

"Oops." James pulled the door shut with his shoe and set the coat rack upright again, then headed into the kitchen. "Dad?"

The kitchen was dark, cold, and bereft of any scent of cooking food. James pulled a wedge of cheese out of the pantry and started snacking on it. "Mush be ehn ish shtudy."

A quick trip to the back of the house showed the study not only dark, but empty of both people and many books, tools and papers. "Uh oh. Did we get burglarized? Can't think of anything anybody would want to steal... and not sure where they'd be able to sell it." James back tracked to his father's bedroom, and found the wardrobe and bureau haphazardly emptied. A final visit to his own room showed nothing missing... and something extra.

"I never get post. What's going on here?" James picked up a letter on his pillow, addressed to him, and opened the envelope.

_My dear son James,_

_Over the past nineteen years I have watched you grow up into a smart, mature young man, more mature than any of the so-called pure humans your age, to say nothing of more intelligent. In many ways, you are an adult now, and I cannot say that I haven't watched your progressing ability to maintain and operate the power plant, and out-filibuster the mayor, without a growing sense of pride._

_I have made a decision to leave this place. You know the workings of the power plant better than even I do, and you are the only one at all in this small town who could grasp the forces involved. I was particularly impressed with your plans to reinforce the dam without having to divert the river - it is unfortunate the mayor refused to sign off on them. You are already more self-reliant than I was at your age, and more to the point you are indespensable to the town's prosperity. I have no doubt you will be very successful in my absence._

_As for where I am going, that is ultimately of marginal importance. I will say that there are technical problems which cannot be solved by letter or parcel. I will be back almost before you know it._

_All my love,_

_Dad_

James looked up from the letter, started to wonder what to do next, and suddenly had the decision made for him. There was a loud explosion, and he ran to the window. There was no smoke, and no flames, but off in the distance he thought he could hear drunken laughter. Laughter that he would recognize anywhere and any time.

Acting quickly, James opened a drawer and pulled out a satchel. A change of clothes was stuffed inside it, along with some books. Running back to the doorway and the coat rack, James threw the overcoat back on, and ran into the kitchen. A loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese found their ways into some pockets, and a clay jug of water with a cork stopper filled the other pocket. The electrical lights throughout the house all blinked out at once.

And after that there was nothing left but to confront Phillip.

James opened the door, closed it behind him, and walked resolutely towards the bridge, pretending not to notice the men hiding behind the other houses and trees. When he got to the bridge, he turned around.

"Hey. Sharp ears."

"You reek of cheap beer, Phillip. Beer and gunpowder."

"Shut up. Your daddy ain't here to save you."

"I saved the whole town once. Not that you know or care."

"Shut up, I said."

"I heard you. I don't care." James stepped backwards onto the bridge, and Phillip and his friends, emboldened by this apparent act of fear, began to close in. At least until James held up his left hand.

"Sharp ears, you called me. Yeah. I'm half elf. And you know what these sharp ears are good for? Hearing you laugh after you threw a black powder grenade into the power plant. Hearing you and your friends try to sneak up on me and catch me. And hearing the dam start to give way."

Phillip looked confused for a moment, glancing upstream. James took another few steps backward. "That's the confusing part. Why would you destroy the dam, knowing that it would destroy more than half of the town? Of course, that's giving you too much credit. You were always an idiot, and a drunken idiot is even more so. You just do whatever pops in your head. It never even occurred to you what would happen if the power plant was destroyed and the dam broken."

Phillip began proving the insulting assessment right and stomped onto the bridge towards James, who began to back away when somebody caught him from behind. He'd been too focused on Phillip to pay attention to the bridge, assuming Phillip's friends were as dumb as he was. Which was, regardless of this grappling maneuver, true.

"I'm gonna cut those dumb ears right off your fat head," slurred Phillip as he pulled a knife out of his belt. Reaching for James, he stumbled slightly.

There was a rumbling downstream and James turned his head, already knowing what had happened. As Phillip grabbed him with one hand, the universe twisted and writhed in a very small space. The man who grabbed James from behind was thrown back and Phillip burst into flame as sparks ignited the gunpowder on his clothes. James turned and sprinted towards the end of the bridge, not daring to look upstream. At the end of the bridge, he turned to look, but did not slow down.

The wall of water looked like it was traveling slowly, but caught up to the bridge with surprising speed, pushing over and under, causing the timbers to creak and shudder. Spilling over the banks on both sides, the water rushed downhill, seeking its own level without concern for what was in its way. So James sped up, driven by inner fire, and did not look back again.


	2. I Am Not Afraid of Any Phantoms!

**November 21, 1889, 1:07 PM**

"Halt! Who goes there!"

"Me."

"Oh. Very well." The guard sat back down in the chair, then immediately sprang back up again. "Wait a blasted minute, who are you?!"

"I'm James Cross. Who are you?"

"I'm Constable Colin Moore. What are you doing out at night when reasonable people are asleep in their beds?"

"My town was destroyed by a flood. My bed is somewhere downstream."

"A likely story."

"Really? Does that happen often?"

"Does what happen often?"

"Floods ruining towns and people walking to this one at night?"

"I... well... argh! Stop trying to confuse me!"

James looked over the guard, his chair, and then at the gate erected over the path into town, a gate with no nearby fences whatsoever.

"Just where is this, anyway?"

"This is Toone Towne, young man, and we don't cotton to people coming in at all hours of the night knocking over rubbish bins and practicing their guitars."

"Do I look like I have a guitar?"

"You could be waiting to have it delivered."

"Colin!"

The guard jumped up as a man rounded the corner of a building, holding up a kerosene lantern. "Doctor! This thief was trying to break into town!"

The doctor looked at James for a moment and then looked back at the guard. "Colin, you dunderhead. If he were a real thief he'd have snuck up behind you and slit your throat before you knew he was here. Now stop bothering people, or at least bother them quietly! I have enough trouble getting woken up in the middle of the night for actual emergencies without you howling to the moon too!"

"Honest doc, that wasn't me, I keep telling you there's werewolves out there, working with the thieves! They're in collision!"

"That's 'collusion' and no they aren't, because they ain't there, and be quiet! You there, sonny! Come on before Colin starts ranting again."

James stepped through the woefully inadequate gate and followed the Doctor back down the path. "Sorry about the ruckus."

"Bah. Colin Moore's been a ruckus waiting to happen since his house was robbed last week. He's been trying to make up for it ever since by being twice as suspicious. He even arrested the West's rooster and threw it in jail for two days for disturbing the peace. I'm Doctor Leon Church."

"James Cross. Nice to meet you."

"Alright James. Here's the rules in Toone Towne. One. Don't bother me. I got enough on my plate at all hours of the day and night too. If you wake me up and you don't need a doctor, you damn well will when I'm through with you. Two. No fighting, stealing, or setting things on fire. That just makes more work for me. Three. Stay away from the Jessie Toone mine. It's not safe."

"Risk of cave in?"

"It's not safe. Those are the rules. You need a place to sleep? There's a hostel right down the street."

"After running from a flood and walking all night that does sound like a good idea. Thanks Doctor Church."

**November 22, 1889, 6:45 AM**

James opened one eye, then another, and then sat up. He was in a strange bed in a strange room. It took him a while to remember he was in a strange town as well. And he'd fallen asleep in his clothes, as well.

"As opposed to what?" he mumbled, and grabbed his satchel from a chair where it had been carelessly tossed the night before. Out in the main room of the hostel, people were drifting indoors and sitting down at the bar, where platters of fried something-or-other were being dished up with regularity and familiarity by the woman operating the stove.

"Back for another serving? I know my eggs and hash are good, but I didn't expect to see you again- oh, begging your pardon sir, but you looked just like the fellow we had here for breakfast yesterday."

James walked over to a seat at the bar and pulled out some coins from a pocket. "This do for a plate of that eggs and hash you mentioned?"

"Coming right up!"

A plate of steaming potatoes, meat, and eggs was placed before James, and he began to gobble it down.

"Are you... no, of course not, but the man I thought had come back, he was just as hungry. And he looked so much like you. Are you sure you're not related?"

James swallowed and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "You might be referring to my father. He built the power plant at Fogdale."

"I knew my eyes weren't lying to me! My name's Opal Dawson, Mister...?"

"Cross. James Cross. My father would be Dr. Jonathan Cross."

"It's a regular Doctor Club in Toone Towne these days, then! There's Doctor Church, and Doc Brown, and that visiting Doctor, what was his name?" Opal yelled back into the recesses of the hostel. "Tilly, who's that Doctor that came in last week?"

"He's a Doctor!"

"I know that, what's his name?!"

"Doctor Paulson!"

"Well, there we have it. Doctor Church, Doc Brown, Doctor Paulson, and Doctor Cross. Who knows who will show up tomorrow?"

James gobbled up an egg, then looked back towards the hostel door. "I met Doctor Church last night when I came in, but who's Doctor Brown?"

"Oh, she's not a real doctor, but we call her Doc Brown. She calls herself the town scientist but mostly she's a blacksmith. She can fix anything except a broken heart, bless her."

James looked down at his plate, surprised at how quickly it was cleared. He pushed the money across the bar. "Thanks for the breakfast, Mrs. Dawson. I may have to stay in town a while if it's always that good."

"Thank you, young man. Be sure to stop by for supper if you can!"

"I'll be sure to fit it into my schedule."

James walked out the door of the hostel and began looking around. For the first time, the scope and scale of the situation hit him like a hammer hitting the thumb of an absent minded carpenter. He began to walk down the street - little more than a patch of dirt between two rows of buildings without much of anything resembling direction. Until the explosion.

The window in front of James burst out, showering the street with wood splinters, but no glass. James jumped back, then determined which building the window was a part of and ran inside. "Hello?! Is anyone in here?!"

"Sorry! My fault!"

A coughing, wheezing figure weaved through the smoke and walked past James, holding a broom. "I was sure that the mixture was right that time! Maybe I should dilute it? Precipitate the whole mixture out of water? No, it would get too hot to stay stable. Hello there, I'm Moira Brown. I run the blacksmith shop, but mostly what I do is tinkering and research."

"Are you okay? There was an explosion, and-"

"Oh, of course I'm okay, don't be silly! I wouldn't handle potentially explosive chemicals with my bare hands, I was using tongs!"

James stared at the woman, who was busy sweeping up bits of wood from the street. Nobody else seemed to pay her any mind, so her behavior, including the explosions, must have been considered ordinary.

"Say, haven't I seen you somewhere before? You look familiar. Did you come in here yesterday to purchase batteries?"

"Excuse me?"

"No, wait, that couldn't have been you, he was older and had human ears. But he looked so much like you!"

"Must have been my father. He's an electrical scientist. Dr. Jonathan Cross. I'm James Cross, by way of introduction. I don't suppose he told you where he was going?"

Doc Brown turned to look at James with a wide eyed, puzzled expression of puzzled... puzzlement. "What do you mean? I thought he must have sent you to pick up some supplies, when I saw you."

James shook his head. "Long story. Here's the short version. I grew up in Fogdale, and he built the power plant there before I was walking and talking. I keep it maintained. He apparently left for some reason but I don't know what, and the dam failed, so now I need to find him."

"Oh, no! Dam-related catastrophes are the third highest cause of death in farming communities!"

"...yeah. I'm just lucky I was on this side of the bridge. Did he say where he was going?"

"He didn't say much except some technical specifications for the batteries and small talk about electrical science."

"That sounds like dad alright."

Doc Brown headed back inside the shop, which now featured much less smoke. James followed and stared at many of the eclectic machines and parts stacked on the walls.

"Actually, he gave me an idea. Engine City University has a great Library full of technical books and manuals, and Engine City Press sends out newspapers full of weather and government and entertainment stories, so why not combine them?"

"Combine a University and a Newspaper?"

Doc Brown cackled wildly, but managed to reduce it to constant giggles after a few seconds. "No, silly! Make a newspaper filled with technical information! Reports on new experiments, variations on old designs, reports on things like that, information especially important to inventors and scientists!"

James scratched his chin. "Well, I suppose it would work if you had a printing press-"

"I do!" Brown waved at a massive congregation of metal and wood in the back of the room. "I just need things to write about."

"That shouldn't be too hard. The more science discovers, the more it has to work with for the next discovery."

"Yeah, but where do I start?"

James sat down on a rickety chair. "Well, the mathematician Charles Dodgson said to always start at the beginning, continue until you reached the end, and then stop. Of course, he was a habitual drunk and probably said that to remind himself."

"That's true. Say, if you're the son of Dr. Cross, you must know a lot about electrical science. And you ran a power plant, too! Maybe I could interview you on how to make a home generator for electrical experiments?"

"I'm afraid I couldn't tell you anything you couldn't already find in the existing literature, and I certainly couldn't express it as clearly. My schooling was split between science and magick."

"Science _and_ magick??"

"Yeah. My mother was an elven sorceress. Or something."

"This is great! I've been wanting to make a study of how magick and science can compromise each other but there's nothing about it in the literature, and nobody who knows any magick in Toone Towne wants to help me with anything."

James looked around at the haphazard workshop. "I can't imagine why not."

"Let me get some paper and ink to take notes! I have so many questions!" Brown scurried away and started digging through piles of papers and books on an overloaded desk, then came back with a pen and a clipboard. "Where to start, where to start, ooh! Ooh, how about, when was the first time you used magick?"

"Well, ironically enough, it was after I got beaten up after school. I must have been ten years old at the time. It took me completely by surprise. Actually it took the bullies by surprise as well. Inner Fire, making me faster and more acrobatic."

Brown scribbled on the paper, splattering ink in the process. "Childhood trauma? Oh no, that's terrible! But it's an insight into magick I never had before, so in that sense, it's great! What else can you tell me about learning magick?"

James stared off into the distance for a moment. "Well, my father insisted I keep pace with my scientific studies at the same time I was studying magick, so it was a little bit harder to start something new in each category. Also, the old wise woman who taught me was an extremely harsh instructor and it took me three years to really understand why; when you are in a crisis, and you are trying to knit your wounds closed or set an angry bandit on fire using nothing but willpower, there's no room for self doubt."

"You have to be willing to give it everything you got, so she pushed you until you were ready to push back all the time, right?"

"Well... that was her intention. It was somewhat like that, but not entirely so, and I suspect that it's different for every mage. If it was all the same for everyone, it would be science. Magick is personal."

Brown finished writing, and ran over to the printing press. "This is excellent! I can't wait to get started! Hey, how long do you expect to be in town? I'm already getting ideas for more articles!"

James stood up and brushed off his coat and trousers of dust. "Probably at least a day or two more. I need to check to see if anyone else knows where my father went."

"Better not bother Doctor Church, he's very fussy when you come to him with problems that don't involve stitches or broken bones."

"So I gathered. Any recommendations for people to ask?"

"Off the top of my head, no, but I suppose if you ask enough random people somebody will remember something. Toone Towne doesn't get as many visitors as we used to now that the mine is cursed."

James stuck a finger in his ear. "Sorry, I thought I heard you say the word cursed."

"I did! Nobody wants to talk about it, they'd rather pretend that they're having trouble finding a new vein, or they ran into some gas pockets, or they need to reinforce the timbers or it won't be safe. But it's cursed! I saw the ghost of the original owner walk from the office to the shaft entrance, and I'm not the only one! I've been trying to create a faster camera to capture the ghost on film, but the last lens I ordered was broken during shipping so I'm playing the waiting game."

"That's not a fun game to play. When did this ghost start showing up?"

"Oh, it's been scaring away miners for months, but it's been really bad these last couple of weeks. Nobody wants to go in there! If this keeps up, they may have to close the mine completely and then Toone Towne will just dry up and blow away like grass during a drought. People have already left, but nobody wants to say anything about it."

James nodded. "The small town ethos. Keep your head down and mouth shut, and hope trouble passes you by. I'm familiar with it. Don't subscribe to it, though. And now that I think about it... I've never met a ghost. Might be an interesting experience."

"Oh, in that case, take this!" Brown jumped up from the printing press and began digging through a pile of electrical parts. "I managed to put this together from plans I got from a correspondence course, but I've never had any use for it. But I bet you could use it for all sorts of things!"

Brown ran up to James and planted a strange device of wires, vanes, solenoids and lights, with a crank coming out of the long handle. "This looks a bit like a Flow Spektrometer. Saw something like this in my dad's notes once."

"That's exactly what it is! Only I was tired of changing batteries every five minutes, so I added an induction motor and condenser so you can just wind it up whenever you need to!"

"I appreciate it. I'll try to have it back in one piece once I'm done using it to analyze the ghost."

"Oh, no, it's yours, it's a gift! For helping me get started on this printing project! And if you have the time I can offer all sorts of gizmos and doo-dads in exchange for helping me with other articles later. Science is not a spectator sport and reader participation is very important!"

"Really. That's rather generous of you. If my search for my father is especially long I may take you up on that offer."

"Good luck, James! Try not to be possessed by the ghost!"

James walked out of the workshop and proceeded up the street, toying with the Spektrometer. The needle - a literal compass needle from a literal compass - oscillated lazily on its pivot, trying to keep track of magnetic north. Or at least, an artificial magnetic north created by a solenoid coil.

"Hmmm. Wonder if it would be safe to check out the mine itself. On the other hand, the ghost is said to start from the office. Decisions, decisions... office."

James looked up and down the street.

"Aha. I just realized the fatal flaw in my plan."

Walking up the street, he eventually came to the turn off road to the mine itself, which wasn't much more than a medium sized hole in a moderately sized hill. The Spektrometer didn't change at all when waved around the entrance timbers.

"YOU! WHAT'RE YOU DOIN'?!"

James spun around and jumped up in surprise, colliding with the wall of the mine and sprawling on the cart rails in the perfect position to hit his funny bone on one of them. "WHAT IN THE- What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?!"

The source of the angry outburst proved to be an old man, stopped over and leaning on a walking stick. "Get off'n my property you demon wrangler! I know'n it's you what cursed this mine! Now you git goin'!" The walking stick was waved in a threatening manner and James scrambled to his feet.

"Fine! I won't help then! Enjoy your ghost!"

"I said GIT OUTTA HERE!"

"I'm 'gitting' outta here! Look! See? SEE?! This is me 'gitting' outta here!"

James stomped back down the road towards the town and held up the Spektrometer for examination. It seemed to have weathered the fall much better than his arm did. Turning back to glare at the yelling old codger, James rubbed the spot where his arm's nerves seemed to be going crazy.

"I'm really starting to hate old people."

**November 23, 1889, 12:02 AM**

In a tree, looking out over the mine shaft entrance and the wooden shack that served as the office for the administrative side of mining, James peered at his pocket watch. It was past midnight, and if Doc Brown's theory was correct the haunting should begin fairly soon.

"Pssst. Hey, new guy. What are you doing up in the tree?"

James looked down to see one of the miners he had talked to in the hostel over supper, now wobbling back and forth with a jug in one hand.

"The question is, what are doing down on the ground?"

"Suit yerself, pal. Just trying to be friendly."

"And I appreciate it. Just enjoying the night air."

"There's air down here too, ya know."

"But up here I get first pick of it."

"...whatever. Don't fall and break your fool neck."

The miner stumbled off, mumbling to himself, and James pulled a small notebook he had bought off Doc Brown out of a pocket. The first page was a list of citizens of Toone Towne that had spotted the ghost, or alleged ghost, or swamp gas, or whatever it really was. The second page was a list of the various visual characteristics observed by the witnesses. Fishing a pen out of another pocket, he underlined all the points in common.

All two of them.

"Looks like a man and glows. How ghost-like."

"Who goes there?! Be you friend or-"

"Up here Constable."

"What? Oh. Wait, what? Why are you up there? Trying to sneak on somebody's roof at night and steal their weather vane?!"

James looked down at the guard with poorly concealed annoyance, meaning completely obvious annoyance. "WHAT roof, and WHAT weather vane?"

Constable Moore looked around. The closest house was some fifty yards distant.

"Alright, I'll let you off with a warning... this time."

"Gee, thanks."

There was a shuffling noise of feet on dirt, and somebody in a nightshirt walked up to the tree. "What's going on out here?"

"Hello, Mr. Killian. Just making sure that our weather vanes are safe from fly by night tree climbers."

"Sure you are. What's going on up there?"

James looked down. "Hi. Watching the mine entrance."

"Indeed? Why is that?"

"Thought it would make an interesting hobby. Nice shirt, by the way."

Mr. Killian looked down at his attire. "Oh. Yes. The baby was up with colic and despite my exhaustion I find myself unable to sleep now that she can. Thought a night's walk in the fresh air would do some sort of good... I say, what is that?"

James looked up, following where Mr. Killian was pointing. A faint phosphorescent glow could be seen within the window of the mine office, and the door opened to reveal a strange figure. Mr. Killian leaned against the tree to steady himself.

"Egad, the rumors are true! The mine is cursed!"

James jumped down from the tree. "I would say haunted. Although it could be both. Or neither."

James began to sprint towards the mine entrance as the specter walked its nightly route. As fast as James was, the ghost had a head start.

So James ran even faster.

The ghost didn't seem to notice at first, then seemed to be trying to put on increased speed, with difficulty. As James approached, the specter turned around and raised its arms, making a strange, unnerving groan. James was not impressed and held up the Spektrometer, which was spinning insanely counterclockwise.

"Fascinating! So you really are a... wait a second." The readings suddenly dropped to normal. "I thought so. That was my fault. So I don't think you're a ghost at all, whoever you are."

The ghost rushed forward, wailing, as if to strike, and James rushed forward to meet the specter, then sidestepped. The phantom tripped over and outstretched leg and went sprawling on the ground with a grunt.

"I'll admit I'm no expert, but since when do ghosts need to breathe?" James stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly. "HEY! I GOT IT! I GOT THE GHOST!"

The constable and under-dressed man came running, skidding to a halt near the ghost, which was groaning in a much less spectral manner. James pointed to a splotch of phosphorescence on his trouser leg. "The so called ghost tripped over me. Phosphorescent dye. His clothes are covered in it."

Constable Moore stepped up to the glowing figure and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Impersonating a ghost is illegal within the city limits of this town, whoever you are!" With a flourish, the constable pulled away the gruesome mask.

"My word! It's old man Burke!" Mr. Killian stepped closer, nearly tripping over his night shirt. "But why would you sabotage your own mine?"

"My mine is mine, and what's mine is mine! And I would of got away with it too if it weren't for that meddling kid!"

The Constable turned the skull-shaped mask around in his hands. "I don't think it's wood, but it's too light to be metal and doesn't feel like leather or- what's this?" He picked up some strange tube shape that fell out of the mask. James leaned over and looked at it.

"Hmmm. I think that's some sort of modified animal call. That's why the groaning sound was so unnerving."

"Is that so? Well, hunting is illegal within city limits too!"

James knelt down and inspected Burke's shoes. "No glowing. So no glowing footprints. That seems logical enough. Don't know enough about chemistry to speculate on what it is specifically but it's less magickal than I am."

Mr. Killian nodded. "Ah, that would explain your sudden increase in speed."

"Exactly. Tell me, I don't know much about Mr. Burke here or the mine, but does he strike you as technologically or scientifically inclined?"

Mr. Killian shook his head. "No, no, I would say he is more monetarily inclined. Mercantile interests. Which makes his sabotage of his own mine that much more peculiar, because without miners digging up silver he has no source of income that I can think of."

James grinned. "Which means that he's either old and crazy, as he appears to be, or he's crazy like a fox and somehow he's profiting off of this. Where does Mr. Burke live?"

"On the near end of main street. Come, I will show you."

"Right behind you. Constable, would you mind escorting the suspect?"

Constable Moore hoisted the aged, glowing, and remarkably lightweight old man and carried him behind the other two. A brief moonlit walk punctuated by stumbling over several branches, a large rock, and a surprised rooster ended at Mr. Burke's front door. James turned the knob and the door opened easily.

"No wonder somebody's been stealing your stuff. Everybody in this town leaves their door unlocked."

James peered inside, trying to discern the location of a lamp or candle, or anything at all. "Okay, I can see a flaw in my plan. Anybody have some matches?"

"I have here." Mr. Killian patted where a pocket would be if he hadn't been wearing a night shirt. "Oh dear. My mistake."

Constable Moore set down the old man and pulled out a tin matchbox, and soon the room was lit by a dim radius of faint orange light. "There we are. Just need to find a lantern or something."

James spied a kerosene lamp in the flickering light, hanging from a convenient hook. "Here we go." The constable touched the match to the wick and James replaced the glass shield protecting the flame.

"So what are we looking for?"

"That's a good question, Constable. It all comes back to the question of why Burke wouldn't want his own mine... well, mined."

"Could he have buried a dead body in there and scared off the miners from finding it?"

"That's one possibility, but he's so old and frail I'm not sure he'd have the strength."

Constable Moore tripped over something and sprawled against a desk. "Oof! What in the blazes of..." Kneeling down, he picked up a large sack. Grunting with exertion, he hefted it up on to the desk. When the sack was opened, there was no mistaking the iridescent gleam of gold.

"Now that is a lot of gold."

"Agreed, constable. Somebody must have been paying Burke to scare off miners for some reason. Does anyone else have a claim to that mine, by the way?"

"I don't think so, why?"

"It's just a theory but let's try it on to see if it fits. Somebody is sitting on a lot of silver, and they want it to be worth more. They hire Mr. Burke to scare away miners because if he just fires all the miners and closes the mine while there's still ore in it, people are going to get angry, especially if he's still rich. Maybe they take matters into their own hands."

"Sounds plausible. I feel like beating him over the head with a shovel myself right now."

"So whoever this is, they send Burke the skull face mask, glow in the dark chemicals and the animal call, and the miners aren't officially fired, they just stop coming to work out of fear. Less silver comes out and the overall price increases, so whoever this is can afford to send Burke a little something in exchange."

"And that's how he got all this gold."

"Yes. Eventually, Burke has enough to retire comfortably, and... well, I'm not sure what happens. Maybe the same guy who's funding the fake haunting comes in and buys it so he can control the silver supply directly."

The constable scratched his head. "Not sure about that, but he's definitely getting paid to do something that's been bleeding this town dry and I don't like that one bit."

"Yeah. Hey, this is his desk, right? Let's see if he has any incriminating paperwork."

"Agreed." The bag of gold was closed up and hefted onto the floor. "Honestly, all those adventurers in books and stories, how do they carry that much gold?"

James pulled open a drawer and pulled out a stack of papers. "I don't know. I always thought they spent some of it on hired help to carry the rest around for them."

The desk drawers revealed assorted papers and writing utensils, old sweets stuck to some of those assorted papers and wood, and a small book that proved to be a ledger. "Might be useful," said the constable as he pocketed it, "but I would have preferred a letter, or a signed, dated confession naming all accomplices."

"Does that happen often?"

"No, but a man can- wait a moment! That's my kettle!"

"What?"

The constable grabbed the kerosene lantern and darted into the cramped kitchen picking up a kettle from the stove-top. "Look, see the bent handle here? From when I dropped it down the storm cellar. And this patch from when I took it to Doc Brown to be repaired!"

James looked around. "Makes me wonder what else he's stolen. Also makes me wonder why he bothered to steal a kettle, of all things."

"We'll straighten this out in the morning light. Right now I need to arrest Mr. Burke on one charge of petty theft and one charge of disturbing the peace."

"Well, people seeing a ghost would probably find it disturbing, so that makes sense."

Outside, a small crowd of insomniacs, drunks and nocturnally inclined townspeople had gathered outside the door as Mr. Killian attempted to explain, for what was probably not the first time, what had transpired during the night. "No, Burke _pretended_ to be a ghost. There was no ghost, just some peculiar glowing paint or dye. Ah, Constable Moore, why are you carrying a kettle?"

"It's my kettle! Mr. Burke was the petty thief all this time!"

The crowd become much more animated at this revelation.

"And he was paid by a person or persons unknown to scare away the miners, so the town would eventually die out and the silver mine could be bought for a song!"

The crowd got that much louder, and Burke jumped up in as lively a manner as an octogenarian with arthritis could be expected to achieve. "That's a lie!"

"We have a huge bag of gold that says you did it! How else can you make money except by sail of the silver from the mine?"

"I made some investments in Engine City! I get paid, uh, dividends!"

James stepped forward. "Then tell us the names of those businesses and we'll send them some inquiries. If they've never heard of you that makes you a liar. And if they HAVE, that still doesn't explain why you're covered in this!" James grabbed the old man's clothes and rubbed off some of the dye, then held his hand in the shadow of the streetlight made by part of the crowd. It glowed faintly. "It's some sort of chemical that glows in the dark. It's hard to see by the light of a fire or the sun, but in the dark it's just the thing to imitate a ghost."

The constable held up the mask. "Not to mention this!"

The crowd, which in retrospect had a very high ratio of miners to everyone else, started to get ugly. "Let's string him up!"

"Let's burn him at the stake!"

"Let's string him up on a burning stake!"

James looked at Constable Moore and subtle looks were exchanged. The constable stepped forward. "There will be no mob justice in this town, please! We will pay out of Burke's ill gotten gains as much as we can of your lost wages and mining can begin again tomorrow, at the same time we determine the appropriate legal punitive measures to take against Mr. Burke."

The mood of the crowd lightened considerably after that, and James and the constable went back into the house to recover the heavy sack. "Of course, a lot of those miners are going to lie through their teeth to get extra money."

"Yes, but they'll just spend it at the store or the pub or on Mrs. Dawson's breakfast specials anyway, and they'll have more money to throw around too, and since the town relies so much on the mine anyway it'll be like pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps."

James chuckled. "I think I read a book where a mage did that. He ended up flying to the moon but he threw his back out doing it so he couldn't get back."

Constable Moore made a hissing sound through his teeth. "I know how he feels."

Outside, the miners formed an orderly line, at least for miners who were drunk, tired, and hadn't been paid in some time, and looped around in a circle until the bag was empty, punctuated only two brawls, an attempted stabbing, and a pistol duel outside the town where nobody was hurt by virtue of both combatants being too intoxicated to aim properly.

"Sun's coming up," observed Constable Moore. James looked up from the two drunken duelists they were dragging off towards the tiny jail Mr. Burke currently had to himself, and nodded in agreement, since the sun was just peeking over the horizon and it was hard to argue with such compelling evidence.

"Last time I stayed up all night I was hiding from Phillip and his friends."

"Who is Phillip?"

"Waste of breath I knew from school. I was the only half elf in a mostly human town. The most obviously different and the easiest target. At least until I started running faster than them. And lighting fires with a snap of my fingers."

The two duelists reached their point of incarceration and were unceremoniously shoved inside. "I'll bet that scared them off for good."

"Unfortunately no. They didn't know what the phrase 'pattern recognition' meant. Especially when they got their hands on alcohol."

"Shh. Don't tell Mrs. Dawson or she'll go on and on about Prohibition and Temperance." Constable Moore locked the cell door and pocketed the key.

"I'll remember that." James took out his pocket watch, checked the hour. "Looks to be about time for me to go tell the ingenious Doc Brown the result of the night's events."

"Tell her I said hello."

James waved to the constable and walked out into the streets, strolling the slightly swaying stroll of the extraordinarily fatigued until he came to Brown's shop, which shortly was opened by the yawning, but still fairly exuberant proprietor.

"Morning, Mr. Cross. How was your ghost watch?"

"There was no ghost, just an old man with glow in the dark chemicals on his clothing, a scary mask, and a big bag of gold in his house."

"Oh dear! Was he frightening away miners in order to drive up the price of silver as a favor to an owner of silver interests who rewarded him with money he was able to get due to the scarcity of silver driving up the price of his own supply of precious metals?"

James stared at the inventor. "Um. Probably. You mind if I sit down? I've been running around all night and I feel rather tired."

"Of course! Have a seat! Just be mindful of any pointy protrusions or sharp edges."

James found a convenient surface and sat down, while Moira rushed around the shop, straightening her merchandise, organizing old notes, and scribbling new notes. "Actually, I was thinking as I was printing the first run yesterday that I could use your help if you were willing to go talk to Lewis Pasteur. He owns the dairy a few miles down the road to Engine City and his milk and cheese are always good, and you could interview him on how he keeps everything from going green-"

The door burst open and a girl ran in crying. "Doc! Doc! It's Ian! He's been kidnapped!"

"Lucille! What's wrong? What happened? What's this about kidnapping?"

"I just turned my back on him for a minute, a swear, and when I looked back there was that pale man and he was dragging Ian off! I tried to catch him, I tried!"

Moira tried to comfort the hysterical girl. "It's okay, Lucille, it's okay! We can go to Collin and... wait, he's got to watch Mr. Burke now. Uh... of course! James, can you go to Lucille's house and- James? Where did you go? James??"

There was a thump as James stumbled out from behind the slammed door, cradling his head. "I regret that I have only one skull to break for my sandwich," the man mumbled, before passing out and collapsing on the ground.

Moira looked at the girl's tear strained face. "Let's give him five minutes. He's had a long night."


	3. The Amazing Adventures of Errand Boy!

**November 23, 1889, 7:30 AM**

James flailed about, grabbed something to use as a handhold, and pulled himself up, sputtering and choking.

"It worked, he's awake! James, you gotta help, there's this girl, and-"

"Why was my head in a water trough?!"

"Well, you wouldn't wake up. This seemed like the most expedient way to do it."

"I was up all night trying to solve the mine mystery! And then I got hit in the head with a doorknob! Why couldn't you leave me alone?!"

"There's no time! Lucille's brother has been kidnapped!"

James opened his mouth for another outburst, then closed it. Then opened it again. "When did this happen?"

"About twenty minutes ago. You're hard to wake up, you know that?"

"Most people are after they've been hit on the head. Who was kidnapped?"

"Lucille's little brother, Ian."

"Do you know who did the kidnapping?"

"She says it's this really pale man who's been prowling around their house since their parents died."

"Okay." James turned to look at the girl. "Do you have any idea why this man's been showing up when he has?"

The girl shook her head, which reminded James of the state of his own. "Doc, you got anything for my head? As soon as the sharp stabbing pains turn into a dull ache I'm probably going to pass out from exhaustion."

"I have a salve I could put on the swelling and bruising, and some stuff I made for all-nighters. It's supposed to be smoked like a cigarette or in a pipe but it kept hurting my eyes so I made it into a sort of chewy, gummy substance. Still haven't found a name for it yet."

"Sounds like a plan."

Once inside the shop, Moira pasted a weird slurry that smelled of tree sap over the spot where the doorknob had struck, then dug a box out from under a pile of books and a dismantled clock. "Here you go! Anything you think you'll need?"

"Some good luck is always handy. What's in this... uh... gum?"

"Tobacco and Coca Leaves, mostly. Wakes me right up!"

"That'll help." James tucked the box into a pocket of his overcoat, started towards the door, which Lucille opened and ran through. "I was going to ask if you had a weapon, then I remembered I could start fires and create electrical shocks with my mind."

"Ooh, that gives me an idea for later! In case something like this happens again!"

"Looking forward to hearing about it."

James turned to follow the girl outside. "If I live," he added under his breath.

Outside, James walked down the street, steadfastly ignoring the girl's pleadings for him to run, which he didn't feel up to at all. After a walk out some distance from the town, and stumbling off and back on to the trail twice, Lucille led James to a farmhouse.

"Okay, where was your brother when you last saw him?"

"He was back by the chicken coop. Come on, I'll show you!"

James followed the girl to the coop, where assorted chickens and a rooster were milling about in a poultry-like fashion. "Alright. And in what direction was the man going when he took your brother?

"That way!" She pointed off towards a grove of trees between a large hill and a rather smaller hill. James pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time, then wound up the watch and put it back. "That would have been over half of an hour ago. What's off in that direction?"

"That's where the graveyard is. Mama and Papa are there now."

James opened his mouth, then looked at Lucille. "When you say there, you mean they died, right?"

"Yes. They got sick with fever. We all did. Ian and I got better but they didn't."

The matter of fact tone of voice made James pause. "Sorry to hear that."

"Ian kept going to the cemetery for a long time after. That was a year ago. When the man started creeping around the cemetery, I told him to stop. Then the man started coming here. The man was after Ian and I don't know why." Lucille seemed ready to break down again so James walked over to the chicken coop.

"If it's just you and your brother here normally, how do you get by?"

"We still have some animals. Somebody tried to lay claim to our land and put us in an orphanage but the people in town stonewalled them. Our grandpapa was the son of Jessie Toone, who started the mine or the town or both. We sell eggs and some herbs from my mama's old herb garden to get by. They even buy up our milk even though the Pasteur's Dairy milk is a lot better. The people in town just do it out of charity... or pity."

"...how old is your brother?"

"Twelve years old."

"How about you?"

"I'm fifteen years old."

"...hmmm. I know the feeling. I'm going to check out the graveyard. You head back to Doc Brown's shop. If I'm not back by... let's say noon, then you better get the constable out there."

The girl gulped, nodded and turned to run down the path. James took a few steps, swayed a bit, and leaned against the chicken coop. "Okay... little change in plans." The box was pulled out and a piece of Doc Brown's restorative taken out. "Moment of truth."

James chewed on the substance, then started walking again. "Tastes kinda waxy, but as long as it starts working soon, I can live with that."

The path to the graveyard was not actually a path at all, but land covered in high grass and the occasional animal burrow lying in wait for an ankle to break. James found himself sweeping around for snakes, spiders and rats in the grass. By the time the graveyard fence was in sight, he had spotted little more than some game birds.

The graveyard itself was a simple plot of clear land sheltered by a few trees and fenced off by older style timber fences with rock-and-mortar posts. There were no paths inside, just stone monuments of varying sizes and sometimes shallow patches of land with above or below average grass growth.

James turned up the collar of his overcoat against what might have been an imagined chill and walked through the graveyard, looking at some of the monuments. Even the smaller ones had intricate decorative carvings around the names and dates of birth and death. The larger ones had epitaphs, many of them humorous, and James had to stifle a laugh at several of them.

The largest monuments appeared to be actual crypts, if not central markers of family plots of graves. James noticed a few family crests, or at least what he thought to be family crests, until he stumbled across one that seemed suspiciously familiar. Walking up the granite steps, he pulled at the door, which slowly slid open with a slight grinding noise.

Inside were four shelves, two on each side of the doorway, all of them occupied by skeletons. James stared at them for a long time, then decided if they were undead they would have gotten up and attacked the instant he opened the door. Inside, the back of the crypt had the same crest that bothered James outside. Running his fingers across the stone shapes, he felt them move.

"A-ha," he mumbled.

The shapes rotated on a broad ring of stone, but also each around its own internal pivot on that ring. There was cross in the center of the fixture that separated into two crosses, one behind the other. Rotating the ring, their nature became obvious as the Runic Symbols of the colleges of White and Black Necromancy.

"...this does not bode well for young Ian."

The two insignia were rotated around their individual pivots until the circular curved ends were near each other, but there was no room for them to pass, unlike the crosses. James rotated the ring again until the spell runes were level with each other. On a whim, he stepped back outside, looking at the insignia outside which merged the runes at their cross shapes.

"Black Necromancy on top, and this is a crypt. It isn't shaped to work the other way... but it's made to move them around anyway. Merging shapes... what other shapes can they make together?"

James stepped back inside, stared at the mechanism, then rotated the ring so that the black necromancy insignia was on the left hand side and the white necromancy insignia on the right. They were just far enough away to not touch each other. James grabbed the runes and began to rotate them to try to make the cross-central shape again when he felt something give.

"...oh ho. So that's how it is."

Pushing the runes together, sections of stone slid out of the main ring, sliding into slots of stonework inside the ring that James initially mistook for decoration. The runes touched each other, forming a central rectangular box with rounded ends on the upper left and lower right corners and crosses on the other opposing corners.

There was a grinding noise and the floor of the crypt dropped out from under James. He tumbled down a set of steps which had not been there previously, but which presumably unfolded from the floor of the crypt when the runes had been placed in the proper configuration.

"Oof. New rule. Everything is a threat until proven harmless."

The passageway before him was slightly drafty and lit by flickering torches. James reached out to take one, then slowly pulled back. Navigating by ambient light, he moved forward through the passage, keeping an eye on the floor, walls, and ceiling by turns in case of pressure plates, holes in the walls for spear traps, or falling weights respectively. After several turns that probably brought him back under the graveyard, and several more alcoves of skeletons that made him even more nervous, James came to a staircase leading down to a large wooden door.

And behind the door was a low chanting.

Edging slowly down the staircase, James held up his left hand, fingers ready to snap. The door was not barred or locked or otherwise obstructed, but did not move easily when pressure was applied. James inspected the hinges, noting a certain amount of rust, and grinned. Reaching inside his mouth, he extracted what was left of the strange stimulating concoction he had been chewing.

The residue was applied to the hinges and worked into the gabs between separate bits of metal. The chanting increased in volume, pitch, and presumably significance, and James dropped what was left on the steps, then pushed the door. Slowly, but mercifully silent, it opened.

James caught a glimpse of a great dome with some sort of altar in the center, surrounded by chanting people in robes and lit only by a handful of candles on skulls, then slipped through the crack and slid into the shadows. Gambling that the cultists or whatever they were would be too focused on the altar to notice anything else, James slipped around the outer edge of the chamber in search of a vantage point that would let him see what they were so keen about.

Although he already had a pretty good idea about that.

The chanting reached a crescendo, and one figure whose robes were slightly more ornate than the others stepped further into the circle. "By the light of the honoured dead, I so consecrate. With this lion's mane, I so consecrate. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Exchange this world for the next."

There was a sound like a butchers cleaver and a rasping noise, and James cursed himself silently. He raised his left hand.

"Sands of time, mark the spirit's voyage." The man held up an hourglass and inverted it, then lowered his hood and turned to one side to stare right at James. "In sixty seconds time, unbidden guest, you will have all the answers you seek."

James stood up slowly as the various cultists turned to face him. "I think I just found out everything I needed to know."

"Fifty seconds is the difference between knowledge and ignorance. What would you do in the meantime?"

James looked around at the various cultists. "Well... if the decorative motif of these tombs or catacombs are any indication, if I tried to go down swinging you'd probably all be able to stop my heart in my chest. Or even blow it up. Of course, I have other means at my disposal, but the problem always comes down to the fact that you outnumber me ten, fifteen to one? Which makes me more inclined to wait and listen to what you have to say. How much time is that?"

"Twenty five seconds."

"Okay. Normally, I'd wait that long. You haven't actually tried to attack me yet, which is what I expected, so there's more going on than what it looks like. But in my defense, it doesn't look good. How much time?"

"Fifteen seconds."

"Fifteen seconds then. Now, I've read a lot of books in my time. Occupational hazard of growing up with no friends in a small town. And all too often the protagonist gives the antagonist an inch, and the antagonist takes a mile. Question is... who's the antagonist here and now?"

James watched the hourglass run out and held up his fists. Around him, sparks and glowing motes of dust formed and began to spin in a globe of force.

"Time's up. Your move, O Mysterious One."

The pale man turned back to the altar and raised his hands to the ceiling. The other cultists turned back to the altar and began chanting again. "Dust to flesh, ashes to blood, reborn in the tranquility of death!"

The chamber was flooded in a blue light as some spectral form descended from the ceiling, releasing a glowing blue light onto the altar, and vanishing. An inexplicable and therefore surely supernatural wind blew out the candles and the chamber was bathed in darkness, save the sparks shielding James.

"...Lucy?"

There were the sounds of fumbling in the darkness and a James took a step towards the center of the chamber, or at least where he thought the center was. "Ian? Your sister came to Doc Brown's shop, said you were in trouble. How are you doing?"

"I saw mama."

"...oh. Okay. Not the answer I was expecting but obvious in retrospect."

There was a slamming of the door, and then the candle flames reignited. Only Ian, sitting on the altar, and the pale man nearby, remained. James walked up, the shield of force fading and sparks falling to the floor.

"Feels a little lonely in here now."

"I am the face of the Order of the Mirror. I speak for them all."

"Okay. Call me crazy, but I swear I just saw you kill him and then bring him back to life."

"You are not crazy. That is what occurred."

"...do I dare ask why?"

Ian hopped off the the altar. "I wanted to see mama. I wanted to say sorry. But she said it wasn't my fault."

James looked at Ian, and then at the pale man. "Who are you?"

"I am Morris T. Vance, and I am most pleased to make your acquaintance, James Cross."

"Okay, related question, how do you know who I am?"

"You made quite an impression in Toone Town. You did not fear the haunting of the mine and the fact that it proved to be naught but an old man's machinations means nothing because you did not know it was a hoax beforehand. We live in a great and advanced civilization, learned in the ancient ways of magick and racing ahead in scientific progress, and for all that, we cower at the approach of death like children terrified of the dark."

"Why not? Death is scary."

"Death is ever present and inevitable, the great unknown that hangs above us all. We fear the dark because we cannot penetrate it and imagine terror upon terror concealed within. But I have seen through the darkness, Mr. Cross. And there is nothing there but the mirrored plain that reflects our own imperfections."

"Yes, that's all well and good, but that doesn't really answer the question at hand. Why Ian?"

Vance looked at the boy and motioned him towards James. "Ian was the first to develop the fever that wracked his family. He believed that his parents caught the disease from him, and their blood was on his hands. The weight of it, on such young shoulders. Can you imagine that, Mr. Cross?"

"...yes. Yes I can. So you ritually killed Ian so his spirit and that of his mother could be reunited and unresolved issues could be... resolved. Mothers are supposed to be comforting, and she comforted him, I get that, but that still leaves the question of why?"

"You said it yourself-"

"Not why Ian, why you." James stepped forward towards Vance, pulling out the spektrometer from his overcoat. The dial spun dizzily and lights lit up, flashing erratically. "If I'm reading this right you're a magickal powerhouse. You'd have to be, Resurrection is the apex of healing magick. But that's got to take its toll on a man, no matter how strong or tough he is. So what's in it for you?"

"If you mean I expect compensation for my services, I seek no worldly gold or jewels."

"Initiation, then. That's what those other hooded guys were about. You showed them the other side and they stick with you for one reason or another."

"Is it so hard to believe, Mr. Cross, that I might wish to go to my deathbed with the intention of leaving this world in a better state than I found it after leaving the cradle?"

"Yes. It is for me."

"...who did you lose, Mr. Cross?"

"My mother. Never even knew her. Don't even know what she looks like. Not that it's any of your business but you've been polite so far and the least I can do is respond in kind."

"I can help you-"

"No. I don't need your help. I'm fine. Ian's alive, and I promised a little girl, and a not so little girl, I'd bring him back. Any objections?"

"Go, and may you find peace, young man."

The doors of the chamber opened, one slightly squeaking. James looked at the doors, seeing nobody operating them, and then stared hard at Vance. "And that's it? No veiled or explicit threats to our lives if we reveal what's going on here? No implied painful death if I ever set foot in these tunnels again?"

"Mr. Cross. You are very young. Younger than you look and seem, younger than you know. You came here to help Ian, in the only way you knew. You wanted to do the right thing. I have confidence that you shall continue to do so."

Ian took James' hand and started walking towards the door. As he followed, James kept his eyes on Vance until the doors closed behind them. The boy lead the way through the tunnels and James followed, apparently lost in thought.

"Sorry about Lucy. I never wanted to worry her. Didn't think she'd understand, and Mr. Vance said the same thing."

"There's a lot of things in this life we may never understand. Like that man letting us go. Or explaining that to your sister, Doc, and whoever else asks." James followed Ian up out of the crypt, and showed no surprise when the steps folded back up into a floor and the symbols separated on the back wall.

"Tell you what, Ian."

"Yes?"

"If anyone asks, I beat that man in a duel for your freedom."

"Okay."

"And the duel was Rock Paper Scissors."

"Okay."

The walk to Toone Town was itself uneventful, save for one encounter with a territorial rooster just beyond the city limits, which would have been almost comical if the bird hadn't possessed such sharp talons. When Ian and James finally stepped through Doc Brown's shop door, the sun was still climbing the sky and the town was more lively than it had been the previous day, perhaps any day in the last several weeks.

"IAN!" Lucille almost tackled her brother in a flying hug, and James pulled out the box of gum and handed it to Moira. "Helped a lot, but the flavor needs some work. It's like chewing an extremely invigorating candle."

Moira put the box on top of a pile of gears and dug out a clipboard. "Glad to hear it! Feedback is always important! And now that you're back, if you're up to it, I've got an errand you could run. You know Pasteur's Pasture Dairy?"

"I know OF it."

"They developed some kind of way to make the milk last longer, and if you could interview them on it, maybe look around their barn a little bit, it would make for a great article on biology and chemistry!"

James shook his head. "Not now. I've been up all night, running around most of the day... I need sleep."

"Tomorrow then?"

James sighed. "Tomorrow. It's always a day away. Do you think Mrs. Dawson will rent out a room for a day, not just a night?"

"It couldn't hurt to ask."

James stood up, unsteadily. "Then I am off to ask what I hope will be a painless question."

**November 24, 1889, 7:12 AM**

James rolled out of the bed, landed on the same bone that had collided with the mine cart rail previously, and woke up with extreme rapidity.

"Urgh. Still hate old people."

Once on his feet, and after pulling on his boots, James opened his satchel and dug out the canvas bag that held most of his money. It was a minute amount to begin with, made smaller by the costs of staying in the hostel and eating admittedly delicious breakfasts.

On the other hand, those delicious breakfasts stuck with a man all day and well into the night, so it was like buying one meal and getting two free. James pocketed some of the coins, put the money bag back into the satchel, grabbed his overcoat, and headed downstairs.

"Good Morning, young Mister Cross! I hope your head's not giving you any more trouble?"

James grabbed a seat and put the money on the bar. "I think the worst is over, Mrs. Dawson. What's the special this morning?"

"Oh, you'll just love it! Scrapple with my very own sausage gravy!"

"If you make it, then it must be good. Put me down for one."

"Coming right up! So have you had any luck finding your father?"

James shrugged. "Not for all my searching so far, but then again, it's only been a few days and I've gotten tangled up with fake ghosts, real periodicals, and strange geometrical structures."

"Anything worth doing is going to be hard, my father always said."

"Sounds like a man who knew what he was talking about. Which is of course a quality to hope for in your parents."

A dish of food was placed before him and James proceeded to eat with speed and enthusiasm. In an incredibly short time the plate was cleared.

"Hey, Mr. Cross!"

James turned around, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "Hello Constable. How's your new guest behaving?"

"About as uncooperative as possible."

"Old greedy man? Sounds about right."

"Yes. In retrospect I should have impounded his giant bag of gold as evidence but if we didn't do something there would have been a riot. Trust me, when miners get started on something it takes a while for them to stop."

"I defer to your expert opinion."

"We still have the clothing, the mask, the animal call and so on. That should be more than enough to send him off to a big city jail so we can keep this one empty for drunken miners. Of course, he probably has a lawyer on retainer."

"Sounds complicated."

"It is. That's why I'd like you to stay around town for a while. Your testimony would be instrumental in putting him away."

"That kind of conflicts with the whole 'searching for my father' thing but I admit I don't have very many leads. Sure, I'll stay as long as I can."

Constable Moore patted James on the shoulder. "I appreciate that more than words can say."

The constable left the hostel as miners filed in for breakfast, and James handed over his money and left. The town was much more active than it had been before, with people talking, laughing, and in some cases fighting in the streets. With little difficulty but much distraction, James made his way to Doc Brown's shop and stepped inside.

"Hello? Doc? You up yet? The door was unlocked so I let myself-"

"Be right down! Just had to-"

There was a tumbling, crashing noise as something fell down the stairs. When the dust cleared, Doc Brown was upside down against a workbench. "That wasn't supposed to happen."

"So I gathered." James held out his hand and helped Brown upright. "So what's all this about the Pasteur Dairy? Something about really good milk and cheese?"

"Exactly! Most milk goes bad pretty fast even if you leave it in a cooling box all the time. In the city, they just deliver it fresh each day, but out here where the farms and towns are spread out, it's a lot harder to get fresh milk."

"But Mr. Pasteur managed to pull it off."

"Yes, and if we knew what he was doing, if we could reduce it to first principles, maybe we could apply it to other foods, to medicine, to all sorts of fields! Or maybe we could just use it for milk and cheese, but even then if it becomes the new business standard it will reduce waste and improve the quality of life!"

"Hmmm. Have you asked him about this before?"

"I've sent letters, but he's never had time and I've never had time at the same time."

"Okay. So it's not a monopoly he's protecting."

Moira pulled out a box of assorted odds and ends. "You might say he already has a monopoly, there's no other dairy farmer close enough to get milk here before it spoils, even if everybody had milk like his. Besides, my grandfather worked with his great uncle setting up the distillery down south."

"Alright. So I probably won't have to sneak around stealing trade secrets and cracking safes and making Constable Moore very disappointed in me. The dairy farm is along the road to Engine City, you said?"

"Yep, just a few miles."

"This might be a stupid question, but which road is that? I only ever left Fogdale a few days ago and I have no idea where everywhere else is."

"The road goes north from main street and then curves around a big outcropping, and then it follows the river for about two miles. The farm is another mile beyond where the river splits off, and if you come to the bridge across the river you've gone too far and you're on your way to Engine City. Actually, Mr. Killian probably has maps for sale. Or at least he did a week ago. Or was it a month?"

"I'll visit him before I leave town. I'll be back with an answer, or at least some useful questions."

"Have fun!"

**November 24, 1889, 10:07 AM**

James smelled the dairy farm long before he saw it, and both the odor and appearance were rather impressive. A barn, several sheds, corrals and pens and two windmills, plus a massive number of cows, and of course the almost overpowering smell of cattle manure, with a touch of cheese.

And just a hint of gunpowder.

An innocent tree was shot in cold blood and James dove to the ground, which fortunately was still dry dirt road instead of pasture covered with cow pies.

"PUT YOUR HANDS UP! I'M NOT IN A MOOD FOR ANY NONSENSE!"

James looked up and saw a man with an impractically large beard pointing a rifle at him.

"Isn't that a muzzle-loading rifle?"

"I said I'm not in a mood for any nonsense!"

"But you couldn't have reloaded that fast. Is somebody else providing cover fire?"

"Shut up!" The bearded man pulled something out of his pocket and threw it at James. It flashed in the sunlight and James caught it easily, even lying on the road. When he opened his fist he saw a silver quarter dollar.

"Uhm... I don't suppose you can hold off on shooting me until you can tell me what's going on here?"

The man relaxed and lowered his gun. "He's okay!"

Several people climbed down from trees and building roofs, where James had been unable to spot them. The bearded man walked down the road to where James was picking himself up.

"Sorry about that. Had to be sure you were completely human." The man's eyes darted to James' ears. "Well, I mean, not a werewolf."

"Oh. Hence the silver coin."

"Yep. I'd like that back, by the way."

James tossed the coin up and the man caught it. "Werewolves, you said?"

"Yep. They came after a little kid who ran up here day before yesterday. Good thing you showed up when you did. Can't send nobody out with werewolves running around, and we're not set to deliver again for another three days. How'd you know something was wrong?"

"Honestly, I didn't. I was sent here by Moira Brown to ask about the dairy business."

The man scratched his head. "Moira? Bless her heart."

"Can I infer you are Lewis Pasteur?"

"That's me." The man began pointing at the young people around the farm. "And that's Luke, Bo, Shane, John, Paula, George and Ringo."

"Ringo?"

"Yeah, Ringo Styre. He helps out around the place. Look, I hate to disappoint Moira but we got a serious problem with the werewolves. They keep coming at us every night, and sometimes during the day. We're fighting a losing battle just keeping them away from the cows."

"Maybe I can help. You said they came after a little kid that showed up?"

"Yeah, he had the damnedest story to tell. Thought he was making it up, then it turned out he was right."

"It's scary how often that happens. Is he okay?"

"Bruised and a bit bloody but he hasn't started howling to the moon yet. Probably tripped over some rocks and branches because he was too busy looking over his shoulder to watch where he was going."

"Good policy when being chased by werewolves."

Mr. Pasteur motioned towards the farmhouse and James followed him. There were occasional waves from members of the Pasteur family from their sentry positions. The inside of the house was, while larger than James' own house had been, was apparently too small for the entire Pasteur family. The inside was cheerily lit and scrupulously clean. A large, rotund, and extremely menacing woman with a frying pan jumped out from behind a door.

"WHO GOES THERE?!"

"Aaaargh! For the love of the gods, it's me, woman! And some help Moira sent."

The frying pan was lowered with a certain amount of either caution or reluctance. "Well, if it's Moira who sent him he's probably okay. Did you test him with silver?"

"YES, would I let him in without testing if he was a werewolf?"

"Did you see if he got sick after eating mistletoe? Werewolves get sick if they eat mistletoe!"

"Everyone gets sick if they eat mistletoe! It's poisonous!"

James held up a hand, and the matriarch raised her frying pan again. "Hi, name's James Cross. I'm guessing you are Mrs. Pastuer?"

"That's me, alright."

"Nice to meet you, frying pan or not. How've you been holding up?"

The frying pan slowly dropped. "Well, the boys have been keeping them away from the house and the cattle so far, but how long is that going to last if we can't send anyone out to buy more ammunition, hmmm?"

"That's quite the valid concern. Everyone on this farm seems to be using the older muzzle loading flintlock rifle style, though."

Lewis Pastuer scratched his beard. "And what's so bad about that?"

"Nothing. Actually in this case it seems like it has a distinct advantage. Have you tried melting down silver to make werewolf-specific bullets?"

"Not enough silver around the place to make more than three or four shots. And we must have missed because the werewolves should have died if we hit them. I guess right now, lead or silver makes no difference."

James pulled out some coins from his pocket and fished out all the silver quarter dollar coins, holding them out to Mr. Pasteur. "Won't have much to spend it on if I'm dead."

Mr. and Mrs. Pasteur exchanged a glance as Mr. Pasteur took the coins. "I'll start melting these down for bullets. Perhaps you can take him to see little Brian."

"Alright. But no badgering him! He's had enough problems already!"

"Mrs. Pasteur, I am not, nor have I ever, been a badgering type of person."

The young survivor, name of Brian, had been sequestered in front of the fireplace in the largest room in the house, in a blanket. His feet swung with nervous energy, perfectly timed to the tick of the clock on the mantle. His eyes darted around the room at the slightest creak of the floorboards.

"And here's me thinking I had a rough childhood." James muttered.

"Eh?"

"Just talking to myself Mrs. Pasteur."

"I thought that means you're crazy."

"No, talking to yourself is fine. If you start answering back then you have problems. Where's Brian from?"

"He came running up to our south gate, crying and screaming something awful. Must have come from down south."

"I don't know the lay of the land around here. What's down south?"

"Just a mining town. Like half of Silverhead. Only they didn't mine silver. They dig up gravel."

"What's it called?"

"Gravelpit."

"Makes sense." James pulled out a map case from inside his coat and took out a map. "Can you mark about where it is on here."

"What kind of rube are you to get sold a map with nothing on it?"

"I didn't get sold it. Mr. Killian gave it to me free, and the waterproof case too. He said there was a copying error with the printers who made that batch and he knew he'd never be able to sell it."

Mrs. Pasteur took the offered ink pen and scribbled a dot near some sort of geographic landmark. "Here it should be. Of course, getting there is a whole other kettle of fish."

"It depends on what kind of fish."

The young boy suddenly stiffened in the chair. "They're coming."

James and Mrs. Pasteur looked at each other in surprise. James knelt down to look at Brian at eye level. "How can you tell?"

"He's been saying that off an on the whole time he's been here-"

Mrs. Pasteur's explanation was cut off by the report of a flintlock rifle, followed by two more, and some yelling and screaming, finally punctuated by a thud on the roof of the house. Brian started shaking like the branch of a tree in a violent windstorm. "They're here."

James looked up, and then over at the fireplace. Upstairs there was the sound of breaking glass followed by the tapping of claws on wood.

"Brian, get down on the floor."

James carefully walked over to the fireplace and grabbed a cast iron poker as the tapping of claws got closer.

"Mind if I borrow this ma'am?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, you have a frying pan, and two blunt instruments are better than one."

The clicking got closer, and shadows were cast along the upper staircase.

"Any port in a storm, I say."

"Storm is EXACTLY what I'm planning on."

The werewolf jumped down from the upstairs landing to the floor of the entrance hall, and James jumped over some furniture, running toward it at full tilt.

"HEY LOOK AT ME!"

The werewolf turned, sniffed, and raised a claw to brush the attacker aside. James dropped, slid on the floorboards, and jammed the fireplace poker into a very questionable location. There was a spark and the werewolf shook, howling erratically in pain.

James pulled back the poker and jabbed it in several different spots, each time punctuated by more sparks and more howling, until it broke away, burst down the front door from inside, and ran towards the southern end of the farm, yelping pathetically.

James picked himself back up and walked slowly back into the family room.

"How did you - what just - are you - ?"

"I'm fine. Not a scratch, not a bruise. Well, some splinters."

"But what did you do?"

"Force Magick. I can charge my entire body to such a high electrical potential that anyone or anything that touches me gets a severe Jolt. The charge found it easier to follow the metal in the poker than anything else, so the werewolf got all of it."

Brian shook his head, still wrapped up in the blanket. "Like if you put on a woolly sweater in winter you get shocked when you touch a metal gate. That happens to me a lot."

"Precisely so, Brian. It's just a matter of forcing the universe to accumulate the charge without the sweater, and building it up to levels it would never reach on its own."

"...when I grow up I wanna be a mage."

The entrance was suddenly crowded with the rest of the Pasteur clan, plus the hired help. "Mary! Are you okay! What happened! A wolf came from the house and I thought-"

"We're fine, we're fine. Could have been much worse. Mr. Cross managed to drive it off with magick and a fireplace poker. What happened with those shots we heard?"

"A whole pack of them showed up at the fences to one of the fields. We were trying to drive them off."

James handed the poker to Mrs. Pasteur. "Meaning that the werewolves knew enough about strategy to try to draw attention away from their real target. Which is very disturbing. Almost as disturbing as seeing that one werewolf up close." James held up his left hand and flexed his fingers.

"Mr. Pasteur, this probably doesn't seem like the right time, but can I see your barn?"


	4. And Run Around By The Light of the Moon

**November 24, 1889, 10:45 AM**

The barn door opened with a wooden squeal and three figures cast their shadows across the dirt floor. Several cows, taking refuge from the howling menace that kept showing up where the grazing was good, looked up in case the three figures were carrying hay.

One figure pointed towards the back wall. "There. That one."

Another figure stepped out of the doorway and towards the back wall, meandering through the crowd of bovines.

"This one?"

"Sorry, one right next to it."

"Alright then." Mr. Styre pulled the metal chain off of the nail it was hanging on and brought it back to James. "Sure you don't want me to weld something pointy onto the end of it? Could have the forge heated up in an hour or two."

"This'll work. The chain is reasonably light and the hook has some weight on its own. It'll act as a force multiplier. Plus of course the metal conductivity."

The three men walked away from the barn and to the southern borders of the farm. Mr. Pasteur reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver quarter.

"It's dangerous to go alone. Take this."

"I thought you melted down all the silver for rifle bullets?"

"That's my lucky piece. Didn't want to gamble all my luck on one single shot. And way things are headed, you need all the luck you can get."

James shrugged. "Could be worse. Not going to tempt fate by saying how though."

"Sure you don't want to take a rifle?"

"Never fired one in my life. I'd end up aiming at the werewolf and blow the back of my head off."

Mr. Pasteur held out his hand and James shook it. "In that case, Mr. Cross, I hope that chain is more than enough. Stay safe."

**November 24, 1889 5:30 PM**

There was a conveniently located rock on the side of the road that James looked around, poked and prodded with a stick, and finally rested on. One boot was removed and a rock shaken out.

"You want a ride, go buy a horse, rock. I'm not a carriage service."

The map was taken out of its case and James traced the natural formations marking the road he followed. "Gravelpit should be right over the next rise then."

There was a rustling in the brush behind him, and James cocked his head to one side. The map was rolled up and put back in the overcoat, and James jumped up from the rock, spinning just in time to see the wolf jump at him.

There was a spark and a snapping sound and the wolf jumped off James, twitching awkwardly and yelping. The hills seemed to echo with more yelping in reply, and James limped down the road with one boot.

"If I live through this I hope I learn something from it." Once over the hill, the town of Gravelpit spread out before him, an only vaguely organized collection of shacks, shanties and sheds. With werewolves walking around several streets.

"...I'm having second thoughts about this."

James turned around, stared at the path, and then turned back to walk down towards the town. Then broke out into a run as growling started behind him.

The werewolves rushed out of the trees and howled, and the ones in the town responded in kind, then broke into excited yelps as James sprinted down into the town itself and they followed. Their glee soon turned to puzzlement as their prey managed to stay ahead of them for once.

James turned a corner too sharply, tripped over a rock, skidded on the grass, and pulled himself up again. The predators had gained a lot of ground, and running no longer looked as good, so James grabbed the chain in the right hand and held out the left.

"I hope you like FIRE!"

With a snap of James' fingers, the lead werewolf burst into flames, and began to yelp his disapproval of this state of being. The rest of the pack skidded to a stop, sensing somehow the unnatural forces at work. Except for one.

The chain arced through the air and wrapped itself around the wolf's neck as it raised a massive claw, and then it was thrown back with a spark. James pulled on the chain, tripping the creature up and freeing it from the metal embrace at the same time, and pulled it towards him in fits and starts, catching each loop around his arm. Another werewolf made to move towards him, and James raised the chain again.

"You don't want to ride this chain, doggie. Oh gods. I can't believe I just said that, that was a _horrible_ pun."

As the wolves attempted to spread out and circle him, James sprinted off through the large gap they had yet to fill, running along the outside of the town. Breathing heavily, he stopped after a few seconds, leaned over, and had just enough time to notice that the werewolves hadn't followed him before he passed out.

**November 24, 1889 9:30 PM**

"Oh dear, oh dear, this won't do at all."

James opened one eye, then the other, then sat up quickly, banging his head on the low ceiling in the process.

"What was that noise? Oh! Oh, you have regained consciousness! How marvelous!"

"Ugh, my head..."

"Yes, it is important to watch your head. Our situation is rather dire and as such I have had to fit more supplies in this domicile than would otherwise be convenient."

"Who are you?"

"Me? Oh, yes, I seem to have forgotten introductions. Ahem. I am Dr. Lester Farnsworth, scientist and historian, and I am afraid you have stumbled into one of my less successful experiments. Are you familiar with the history of werewolves in Silverhead? It is quite peculiar and... oh, I think this is the part where people tell me to be quiet because they are busy."

James carefully sat up, slid off of the stack of crates that had served as an improvised bed, and walked over to where the scientist was fiddling with various apparatus and instruments. "You look pretty busy yourself."

"Indeed! I must find out what caused this accelerated strain of lycanthropy before it spreads beyond Gravelpit!"

"You mentioned something about an experiment?"

"Ah, yes, what started this mess in the first place. You see, historically the presence of too many werewolves in Silverhead is inexplicable given the vast silver deposits. One would think that they had been hunted to extinction, along with any other were-creatures, many years ago."

"I always did wonder about that."

"And you did not wonder alone. Many historians and anthropologists have sought answers as well. None have been any more plausible than the others. In the meantime, I decided to seek practical solutions to the problem of werewolves, and what better controlled environment than a mining town where the silver deposits had been exhausted?"

"There's something odd about that kind of controlled environment."

"Well, perhaps in hindsight of course, but at the time it made sound logical sense. And besides, I did not anticipate how homesick I would get until I spent several years at Engine City University. Coming back home was at the forefront of my mind, and things started promisingly enough. Let me show you." The scientist motioned to a strange glass globe filled with some sort of glowing vapor.

"What is that?"

"This is a modified incandescent bulb for a lamp post. I removed the normal filaments and replaced them with silver wire, and evacuated the bulb of all normal air before replacing it with air heavily charged with carbonic acid. The results have been very dramatic!"

"Dramatic. Yes, that's the term I'd use to describe werewolves everywhere trying to kill me."

"Unfortunately that was the exact opposite effect that I intended and I cannot understand why! The principle of the excited silver producing energetic rays characteristic to silver is sound, but why does it promote the spread of the werewolves instead of injure them?"

James opened his satchel and dug under some clothes and several books until he found one particular volume. "Related question. What makes this place safe? Silver stockpile?"

"Alas, I used up all the silver I had making those streetlights. No, I suspect that the previous occupants of this house spilled oil of _lignum vitae_ and it managed to seep down under the foundation."

"_Lignum vitae_ is the proper name for mistletoe, right?"

"Yes, indeed! Unfortunately it is not as if there were live plants growing nearby that we could process for the oil. By spraying it over other buildings the town would doubtless become intolerable to the werewolves and we would be safe."

"Here we are. Doctor, you said you used silver wire in these bulbs?"

"Yes, quite."

James closed the book and put it back in the satchel. "You know how werewolves are supposed to be transformed by moonlight?"

"There is a detectable correlation between the cycles of the moon and the sightings of werewolves, yes."

"Well, did you know that in alchemy, the metal silver is associated with the moon?"

"Well, no, but I don't see what the relevance is between... oh. Oh dear."

"Yes. Every one of those bulbs is like a full moon. We need to find the power plant for this town and turn it off. Without getting killed and eaten by the werewolves."

"Oh, there's no need to worry about being killed."

"Why? Does this oil smell soak into clothing so it wards them off?"

"No, it's just that they are far more interested in spreading the lycanthropy. That's why there are so many wolves in the town, the few wild ones infected everyone who lived here with the exception of myself."

"...oh. Well, that explains a few things."

**November 24, 1889, 9:50 PM**

The door opened with a squeak and James peered through the crack. No werewolves were directly outside waiting to swing a claw through the open door, which was a definite plus. Out in the waiting darkness beyond the nearest streetlight, a few paired dots of light could be seen.

"Nice try, doggies. Doctor Farnsworth, you said the power plant was in the basement of the town hall?"

"Indeed I did. I do not know if any of the doors to it are locked or not but if so there should be keys nearby. Once the power is lost to the silver globes, I suspect that the lycanthropic contagion, overstimulated by the excited silver, will immediately relapse into dormancy regardless of the state of the moon itself."

"I can't help but think that you've already made one inaccurate prediction, so I'd like to ask for a worst case scenario that I can prepare for."

"Well, I suppose the worst case is that the silver excitation has permanently locked the lycanthropic cycle in its state of highest activity and the wolves will be so enraged by the loss of their artificial moonlight that they tear us both to pieces while we are still alive. Oh dear. Now I've gone and frightened myself."

"Good. Fear keeps us safe. Wish me luck." James slipped through the crack in the door, shut it behind him, and began limping down the street. A wolf appeared out from between two houses on one side of the street, and James snapped his fingers, creating a roaring fire in front of it.

The werewolf shrank back from the flames, but as James limped past, the predatory instinct overcame fear and it lunged forward with a growl.

"Uh oh."

James sprinted ahead and the wolf chased after. Looking behind him, James spotted both the wolf losing ground and the clock tower of the town hall he had missed. Taking another too sharp turn that left him skidding in the dirt, James sprinted down another side street towards more werewolves.

"GET OUT OF MY WAAAAAAY!" Fires were started and extinguished spontaneously in front of the wolves and they retreated back down the street. James found a narrow alley and squeezed into it, making his way back towards the clock tower landmark.

A low growl stopped him as he limped up to the door. James turned around to see a werewolf with patches of burnt fur. "Oh. Great. You again."

The wolf lunged forward just as James brought up a hand and knocked him to one side, then pounced on him and lashed at his back. James screamed and there was a massive spark that threw the burnt wolf backwards.

"AAAAGH! MY BACK! I WAS USING THAT!" James crawled to the wall and managed to climb to his feet. Turning around, he saw the werewolf get back to its feet, and start moving towards him again, growling. One hand reached blindly for the door handle and opened it, and James fell inside, landing on his back with another scream.

Outside, wolf after wolf started howling. James kicked the door shut before the burnt wolf could enter, pulled himself up to his feet, and turned back towards the inside of the town hall. A door in one shadowy corner beckoned downstairs with sounds of machinery. James took a few steps, then lost his footing and fell on the floor.

Outside, the howling increased in volume and numbers of wolves involved. James shook his head, stood up again and limped, carefully, towards the door. At the top of the staircase, he made the mistake of looking over the edge of the railing. The world spun, and so did James, down one flight of stairs. On the landing, he took a deep breath, then another, then lunged for the railing. Hunched over it, he sprayed what remained of his breakfast across the floor below.

Several deep breaths later, he pulled himself down the next flight of stairs. The sound of machinery was louder, but somehow so was the howling. Down the last steps, James felt his hands start to shake where they clutched the railing. On the basement floor, one foot slipped on something warm. James grimaced, and looked down.

"...I don't remember having blood for breakfast."

Slipping awkwardly into the basement, James found the door to the boiler room by virtue of it being the loudest. The sign helped a lot too. When the doorknob was twisted, it didn't budge. James looked down at the door, then around, hoping to see a flash of metal that would indicate a key somewhere in the dimly lit basement. One metallic reflection did offer hope, and James walked over, wobbling, until his hands closed on a metal pry bar.

"...I can work with this."

The pry bar was jammed into the gap between the door and the doorway, and James lunged with all of his strength. The door and frame both bent until the bolt was dragged out of its slot and the off-angle torque ripped the door open, sending the pry bar flying and James sprawling. After two attempts to get up to his feet ended in him falling down again, James opted to drag himself into the boiler room.

The engine noise was deafening but the howling seemed louder than ever. Looking around, James spied the controls for the power plant and crawled over. One hand reached for a large knife switch, and James couldn't help but notice the fingernails growing longer.

"...oh. So that's how it is."

Regardless of increased nail length, the switch was out of reach and the attempt to climb up the wall proved fruitless. James turned to look at the engine, then crawled towards it. Sparks formed around his body and the engine started to make unsettling rattling noises.

"Come on. Come on. Come one, come all. Break down, dammit. Break down..."

The engine began to rock back and forth, but slowly. Far too slowly. James looked over towards the generator, and spotted the transformer on top where it lead to the cables leading out to the rest of the town. Looking around, James spotted the pry bar out in the hallway.

"Not enough time... oh hey, I almost forgot." Reaching into a pocket, James grabbed the chain, pushed himself up into a sitting position, and threw the chain at the transformer. The passage through the shield sent each link flying at odd angles, but the chain itself kept flying, and wrapped around the poorly insulated terminals. There was a shower of sparks and the transformer burst, spilling some sort of oil out onto the floor of the boiler room. The engine started to rattle and buzz, and shrieked as a valve opened, filling the room with steam.

"My work here... is done." James crawled towards the doorway as the lights flickered and went out. Navigating by touch, he found his way back outside the doorway, and pulled at the door to try to close it. The still projecting bolt made this quite difficult, so he made several attempts to drag himself towards the stairwell before finally giving up. One hand reached into the coat and pulled out a silver coin.

"Fat lot of good luck you were..." James mumbled.

**November 25, 1889, 9:30 AM**

"James? I say, James, can you hear me?"

"Mmmph. Five more minutes dad."

"James, it's Doctor Farnsworth! You did it! You saved the town!"

"Wuh?" James pried one eye open, then closed it immediately. "Ack. Bright."

"Bright sunlight, to be precise! And it rises over a town that is completely devoid of werewolves or other were-creatures, thanks to you!"

James peered through narrow gaps in his eyelids, just enough to make out the scientist's outline. "Oh. Now I remember. Everyone changed back when the lights went out?"

"Something like that, indeed. Without the excited silver rays to fuel their lycanthropy they were much less energetic and therefore less disposed to chase me when I left the building. Some of them even began to change back into their original forms. I was able to dismantle one of my original streetlights to recover the silver within, and I made much headway in deducing an actual cure this time!"

"You didn't start poking people at random with pointy bits of silver, did you?"

"Of course not! I'm a scientist! I used a highly developed system of criteria to decide which person should be poked!"

James tried to slide off the bed he had been placed upon and managed to get to his feet. "How long was I out?"

"While it is impossible to say precisely, as you were already unconscious when Mayor Wilkinson found you, you have remained unconscious up until just a few minutes ago, for a minimum of seven hours."

"Feels about right... wait a minute." James reached back under his back and again over his shoulder. "I got scratched pretty bad on the back by one of those wolves."

"Really? Your overcoat had several large gashes in it, and much blood stained the fabric, but there were no lacerations. How marvelous! This confirms my hypothesis on incomplete contagion of the lycanthropy!"

"...say what?"

"When you were found you were clutching a silver coin with, if you will pardon the expression, a death grip. This must have delayed the progression of the werewolfism until you could disable the power plant. Additionally, I have deduced that the presence of metallic silver near a werewolf absorbs the lunar rays that prompt the transformation, thus starving the actual werewolf form and causing a reversion to the nominal state!"

"And silver bullets will kill a normal person just as easily as a werewolf."

"Quite so, and being exposed to silver by other means usually involves the werewolf running away. If it lies within its own body escape is that much more difficult."

James nodded, then stopped as the world began to swim. "Alright. That coin is on loan from somebody and I'm going to need it back. Also, where's my coat?"

"The coat was damaged extensively, it would take considerable effort to clean and repair it-"

James grabbed hold of the bedstead to help stay upright during the dizzy spell. "My father gave me that coat. I am very fond of it."

"Oh, well if you insist, it is right over there next to the comically constructed wall clock."

James followed the scientist's finger to the far wall, walked slowly and unsteadily over to the coat hook, and put on the garment. Ripped as it was it still fit well and imparted an intangible quality to its wearer; James seemed to straighten up and become more alert.

"That's better. And the lucky silver piece?"

"One moment." Doctor Farnsworth walked over to a magnifying tube and removed something metallic from its focus. "I was curious if there was any unusual properties to the coin that made its presence so important to you at the time."

"Well, I have to give it back to the rightful owner, who is certainly capable of shooting both my eyes out at two hundred paces."

"Seems like a superfluous worry when surrounded by dangerous werewolves."

"Maybe for you, but I was planning on living through this from the very beginning. Hey, you said everybody turned back to normal, right?"

"I did indeed."

"Where are they? I would expect to hear the ambient noises of everyday life outside or something."

"Well... not everybody who transformed back was in a fit state. Billy Brandice was very badly immolated, we believe when the secondary transformers near the city hall roof exploded. Everybody wants to keep him company."

James stared at the scientist. "This Brandice fellow. What's he like?"

"My personal opinion? He's a very nice man provided he knows you. But he certainly won't be voted Gravelpit's official welcoming committee anytime in the foreseeable future. A little bit xenophobic, I must say."

"Hmmm. That would explain a lot. Tell me, do you know of a young boy named Brian?"

"Actually, Brian Wilkinson is the name of the mayor's son. When he brought you here he asked if I had seen him when I was going around reviving people and dismantling the streetlights, but I could not recall doing so."

"That's because he was up at the Pasteur Dairy. That's how we knew that something was wrong here. Plus all the werewolves that came after him."

"I haven't noticed many people coming back into town. Perhaps they returned after following you from the Dairy?"

"Probably. Does it matter? They're here, they're not werewolves, and that means I have to get going. I still have to interview Mr. Pasteur on his high quality milk for Moira Brown."

"Oh, you know Mrs. Brown! How marvelous! Tell her that Doctor Lester Farnsworth sends his regards!"

"I'll do that. Stay out of trouble, Doctor Farnsworth."

"I would, but where's the fun in that?"

**November 25, 1889, 10:04 AM**

"Things are starting to look up for me."

James sat down on the stone, picked up the discarded boot, and shook it. A small lizard fell out and fled into the high grass by the road, and James pulled on his lost boot. "Okay. For future reference, boots should be returned to feet as soon as possible."

After several hours, a tense encounter with a wild boar, and tripping twice over holes burrowed by small mammals, James spied the southernmost fences of the Pasteur Dairy Farm. His pace increased slightly, with a spring in his step that hadn't been there moments before.

By the time he got to the southern gate, he was ready for whatever warning shot was coming his way, but no such shot occurred. And there were no noticeable silhouettes or outlines of the younger members of the Pasteur Clan atop the various buildings.

"Well, this is out of the ordinary. Not that I have any idea of what ordinary is on this farm, what with the werewolves and all."

"JAMES!"

"YAAAAGH!" James jumped a foot in the air, spun wildly, and somehow managed to land flat on his back, then jumped up to his feet again. "Don't _do that_!"

"Sorry." Paula Pasteur stepped out from behind a fence post. "I'm on lookout duty. Turns out when the werewolves left they ripped open a fence so half the guys had to go get the cattle back. So did the other half."

James stared pointedly at the flintlock rifle in the girl's hands. "Just lookout duty?"

"Just lookout duty."

"Right. Well, you'll be happy to know I stopped the werewolves. Mix of magick and science that went horribly wrong, just like in the books."

"That was fast. You've only been gone a day."

"Procrastination is a thief of time. Plus the wolves chased me part of the way so I had extra reasons to hurry up."

"When papa gets back he'll be glad to hear it. And mama's still here so she'll be glad to hear it right now."

James and Paula headed towards the farmhouse. "How's Brian holding up?"

"Much better. I think him seeing you beat up that werewolf did him a world of good."

"That reminds me, I kind of lost the chain in the chaos of fixing everything. But the lucky silver piece probably saved my life."

"Why did you think it was called a lucky piece?"

**November 25, 1889, 12:22 PM**

"We're back! Got the cattle back! Where's Paula, why wasn't she on lookout?"

Paula, James, Mrs. Pasteur and Brian looked up from the kitchen table, where the overcoat was being carefully restored to a non-ripped up state. "Hi Mr. Pasteur. Got something that belongs to you."

James flipped the lucky piece into the air and Mr. Pasteur caught it. "You're back already? What about the werewolves?"

"Changed back into people. There was an accident involving the full moon and a light bulb. And possibly half a bottle of scotch, but I can't really prove that."

"That doesn't sound good. It doesn't even make sense."

"Mixing magick and technology seldom does, and should be performed by professional madmen only." James shrugged. "But the town is safe and Brian can go back to his family as soon as somebody has a spare day to head down there. Oh, and your chain had to be sacrificed to shut down a runaway power generator. Uh, I'll replace it of course."

Lewis Pasteur chuckled. "I'd say losing a chain is a small price to pay for saving my family and my herd from werewolves. That one's on the house."

"Oh, well, that's good because I'm almost flat broke as it is and I'm not sure I could afford to buy a replacement chain. Actually, that's why I came over here in the first place, Moira Brown hired me to talk to you about how you managed to provide fresh milk consistently."

"Ah, of course, now I remember. Moira Brown, she never lets the world get her down. My old man knew her old man in the way back when, y'see."

James nodded despite a lack of seeing. "I suppose growing up in an isolated community makes me the odd one out."

"Life's not about where you came from, it's about where you're going."

"Actually that's pretty wise."

Lewis shrugged. "Eh, read it in the Farmer's Almanac. You want to go look at the dairy now?"

James looked at the coat, which was still being stitched up, then stood up. "Looks like a good time for it."

The two men walked out of the house and towards one of the sheds. Outside, the various brothers were attempting to direct uncooperative bovines towards various buildings, and then started shouting for updates from their patriarch. Lewis waved at them. "S'allright! Wolves are gone! Everybody's okay!"

Sounds of celebration filled the air, then were filtered out as James stepped inside a shed filled with tanks, tubes, butter churns and strange mixing devices. "Looks like a chemistry set in here, only with more metal and less glass."

"Well, that's not to far from the truth. Years back, there was a mighty bad season for us. Cattle wasting away, some sort of pox that cut off the milk supply. A few pregnant cows lost their calves. It was shaping up really bad, and then when things couldn't get any worse they did. There was a storm and lightning struck the barn that used to be here."

"Up in flames?"

"Well, the rain kept the fire from spreading too much, and we were able to get the cattle out. But when the dust settled, we were hurting in a bad way. That's where all the milk was kept. So here I am wondering how I'm going to feed my family, when Paula walks in with a milk mustache when we didn't have any milk. I ask her where it came from and she takes me to where we threw the milk cans."

Lewis pointed at a conglomeration of pipes connected to a wood burning stove that James was starting to suspect was a heat exchanger. "Now, it didn't exactly taste fresh, but you have to understand that this was after we'd written it off as being boiled into worthlessness. Something about the heat of the fire changed the milk so it didn't go bad as soon as we thought it would. The rest of that season I was too busy to think about it much but I wrote it down, and a few years later when we got back on our feet again, I started taking some of the milk in a pot over the stove-top."

There was the sound of gunfire outside. James started, but Lewis waved a hand. "Probably the boys celebrating now that the cattle are fenced up and can't stampede. I keep telling them not to waste bullets and powder, but... where was I? Oh yeah. So the heat alone was giving me results, but there was something missing. I figured maybe the rain getting down into the holes in the roof and cooling the clans did something, so after I boiled some more milk I'd put it in a water bath from the cold spring to cool it down, and that was the secret. It's not like cooking a stew, where you leave it on the fire all day. You heat it up fast and get it cool fast, then it lasts two, maybe three times longer. We can have it on the road for longer and cover more ground, means more customers, more money, and we can even afford to try some new ideas. Let me show you this stuff with fruit, for example-"

Lewis was interrupted by the door being kicked open by a man in a broad hat, broader coat, and tiny hands holding two large, shaking revolvers. "Don't nobody move nothing! This is a stick up! And you're the ones getting up! Sticked I mean!"

Behind him, two other men, similarly dressed and armed, stumbled into each other and got stuck in the door. "Uh oh. Tom! Help!"

The first intruder turned angrily. "I told you not to use my name!"

"Then how do you know when we want to tell you stuff?"

"I just know! That's why I'm the leader!"

"Oh."

Tom turned back to the business at hand. "Okay, put all the money in the bag!"

Lewis looked at James in confusion and saw that confusion mirrored. "What money?"

"The money! The stuff banks have in big vaults like this one!"

James rubbed the fingers of his left hand together in what he hoped looked like a nervous gesture. "This is a dairy farm. There's no money, just cows."

"What?"

"Dairy farm. Just cows."

"Oh. Alright, then put all the cows in the bag!"

"What bag?"

Tom looked behind him at his two companions, still trying to get unstuck from the doorway. "Hurry up!"

One man managed to squeeze out, only to be crushed by the other who lost his balance and fell on him. After some scrambling and dusting off, one of the men produced a burlap bag.

James scratched his chin. "I don't think there are any cows small enough to fit in that bag. Do you have anything larger?"

"No, this is the only bag we have. Start filling it with stuff!"

James looked around and grabbed a milk can. "We got milk. Lots and lots of milk."

"Alright, pour the milk in the bag!"

"Pour?"

"Stop stalling!"

James shrugged and picked up the milk can with one hand and walked over to the bag, then grabbed the bottom and tipped it over. The milk spilled through the fiber of the bag and pooled around the robber's shoes.

"I think your bag may have a hole in it. Or possibly several hundred small ones."

"Dammit! Now what are we going to do?"

"Well, why not just carry the milk cans themselves. One in each hand should be easy."

"Alright! Matt, Zeke! Get some of those milk cans!"

The other robbers tripped over each other trying to get more of the metal cylinders.

"You know, you could carry one too if you put one of those pistols in your belt."

"...alright, let me have one, and no funny business."

James picked up a full milk can, trying to act as though it was light, and handed it to Tom, who bent over under the weight. The gun went off in some odd direction as Tom tried to adjust for the rapid change in perspective and failed, and fell out of his hand when his head met James' knee coming up.

"Pasteur!" James tossed the pistol he yanked from Tom's belt. As the farmer took aim, the three robbers charged.

"Run he's got a gun!"

Charged out of the building to be more precise. James poked his head out of the door and saw the three men run around in panicky circles in the farmyard.

"Where are the horses? I told you to tie them up!"

"I did! Somebody must have stolen them!"

A shot rang out and dirt jumped up in the air.

"Leave the horses! Just run!"

A few moments later three dust trails were all that was left of the robbers. James and Pasteur walked out of the shed.

"Hey papa!"

Paula waved from the top of the farmhouse, holding a lever action rifle.

"Huh. I thought all you guys had were the flintlocks."

"That's all we do have." Lewis cupped his hands. "Where'd you get that there?"

"It was in the saddlebags when the boys took the horses. Those morons never bothered to look in the storm shelter."

James shrugged. "Makes sense. Banks don't have storm shelters and they were expecting a bank. Gods only know why."

Lewis Pasteur shook his head. "I don't expect to ever know. And I don't want to. If I do that means I'm as stupid as those guys."

"Don't worry Mr. Pasteur. No one could be that stupid. Probably why there were three of em."


	5. No News Like Old News

**November 25, 1889, 8:00 PM**

"Hello?" The door to the shop slowly squeaked open, and James poked his head in. "Doc? I have the stuff on the Pasteur Dairy you wanted."

A soot covered face appeared from behind a printing press, coughing.

"James? Is that you?"

"Unless you sent somebody else named James on a long misadventure involving werewolves, robbers and milk, then it's me."

"Werewolves? Why would there be werewolves at the dairy?"

"The milk is just that good. That's the short answer. Long answer I managed to write up for you with the dairy notes."

"That's terrific news! Let me put those somewhere safe in case there's another fire and you can tell me all about what's happened! Pull up a chair, or what's left of one."

James looked around for an object that could safely perform the functions of a chair, and settled for an empty wooden crate. "Your place seems to be a shambles most of the time. Have you considered investing in furniture that can handle explosions better?"

"Yes, but where would the fun be in that."

"...I guess I can't argue with that. Do you know a Dr. Farnsworth?"

"I think I remember him from Engine City University. Why, did you meet him?"

"He was working on a way to stop werewolves in a town called Gravelpit. First it was working very badly and then it started working fine."

"So he was driving the werewolves up towards the dairy?"

"...sort of. It was a complete accident of course. It's all in the notes-"

The empty crate collapsed under James, quickly alerting him to certain facts, including but not limited to the fact that the crate was not that empty.

"YEEAAAAGGH!" James jumped up, stumbled to one side and crashed into a bookcase, which retaliated by tipping over on top of him. Moira jumped up and heaved the bookcase off, and James lurched to his feet, shaking off books.

"What did I just sit on?" A hand reached back and pulled something very sharp out of his thigh, something made of glass and covered in something green. Moira gasped a muffled gasp from behind hands that covered her mouth.

"That wasn't a good gasp. Nobody who gasps like that ever has good news to share."

"James, that's a broken bottle of poison!"

James stared at the glass, then at Moira, then at the glass again. "Not really expecting a yes but there's no harm in asking... antidote?"

"No. Maybe."

"Oh, well THAT narrows it down. Serves me right for using non-chair objects as chairs. This is not at all fair." James tried to sit down on an actual chair but a shooting pain prompted him to stand up again. "I survive a flooded river twice, a mystery cult, a stolen book, really stupid robbers, and a town full of werewolves to be laid low by a broken bottle full of something that I wasn't supposed to have in my blood!"

"Try to lie down and maybe we can keep the poison from spreading-"

"That close to the heart? Maybe if I cut my hand or stepped on it barefoot but not like this. What was that maybe you said when I asked you about an antidote?" James started swaying from side to side and grabbed a coat-rack to stay stable. Unfortunately the coat-rack lacked arms of its own to grab the wall with and both man and furniture fell over.

"It's an experimental idea I had that breaks down the poison but I haven't even tested it yet!"

"Speaking from my position as a poisoned man... on the floor... I say there's no time like the present. I think I'm about to pass out now." James rolled over on his back, sweating and pupils responding to the light improperly. One hand reached unsteadily for the ceiling. "With my last breath, I curse Phillip!"

**November 25, 1889, 8:34 PM**

"Aaagh! Bees!" James flailed around and managed to fall off the workbench with a thud and a yelp.

"James! You're okay!"

"That's debatable. I had a horrible nightmare where I was being chased by a swarm of giant steam powered bees and the only friends I had consisted of a string quartet consisting entirely of ogres."

"What do you mean, a string quartet?"

"Their fingers were too big to handle the instruments so the only thing they could do was strum them."

"Well, a strange dream is only to be expected when recovering from poison. My experiment worked perfectly! The electrical current broke down the poison. There wasn't even any inflammation around the puncture."

"Oh. That sounds good. Wait..." James looked down. "Where are my trousers?"

"Over there on the box. Managed to stitch the tear up and get the blood out of the cloth."

"So you saw-"

"Don't be shy, it was to save your life! And for science of course."

"...Oh. Okay. Just be sure when you write this up for your periodical, you leave certain details out."

**November 25, 1889, 9:02 PM**

The shop door open and a half elf limped out into the dim light of street lamps.

"James! There you are!"

"Hmm?" James looked around to see the constable running towards him. "Oh no. I missed the court date for the old man, didn't I? Sorry, I got dragged into this thing involving werewolves and I lost all track of time."

"Werewolves? I knew I wasn't hearing things! Anyway, it seems whoever was conspiring with Burke washed his hands of the whole mess, so Burke tried to escape."

"This ought to be interesting. How far'd he get?"

"The first time, all the way to the rain barrel outside the jail. Stumbled over it in the dark. The second time, all the way to that tree you were in the night you caught him. Tripped over a root. Also in the dark. Third time was the charm, unfortunately."

"Sorry to hear that."

"Yeah. We may find him yet, but it's still a sore point."

"How'd he get out of his cell in the first place?"

"...would you believe a little monkey brought him the keys?"

"Not without seeing it with my own eyes."

The Constable Colin beckoned and James followed him to the jail. When the door was opened, a tin mug was tossed out into the street with a screech. James spied something small, furry, and with opposable toes run off into the shadows of the station.

"Constable, I'm sorry I ever doubted you."

"As things stand, the monkey has the station and we don't know where it came from or how it got here. Or why it was helping Burke of all people."

James rubbed his chin. "Starting to wish I knew some nature magick so I could talk with it."

"That would be useful, yes. In the meantime though, I thought I'd offer you Burke's place in town."

"Wait, what?"

"For services rendered. You caught a scheming old man, saved the town economy from total collapse, rescued an orphaned boy from kidnapping, and frankly the more time you spend helping Moira with that thing she's printing, the fewer explosions happen."

"Hmmm... I was going to move on to someplace else to keep looking for my father, but it would be nice to have a home to come back to when I find him. Especially since the last one was probably washed away in the flood."

"There you go then. Here's the key, and I'll dig up the deed as soon as I find away to get rid of that cursed monkey."

"Thanks!"

**November 26, 1889, 7:45 AM**

James woke up in an unfamiliar location and found it becoming increasingly familiar. Looking around, his still sleeping brain managed to remember the events of the previous evening, and he hauled himself off the bed.

"Okay... what's today supposed to bring for me? Dragons? No, those are extinct. That we know of. Bad weather? Wouldn't be the first time. Maybe those three stupid robbers come back for revenge. Actually that would be kind of fun."

A short walk down the main street, with a pause to listen to the screaming from inside the police station, brought him to the hostel he had stayed at previously. Pulling out his money bag he did some arithmetic in his head.

"Well, if it isn't young Mr. Cross again! Haven't seen you in some time, thought you'd gone off after your father."

"That's the plan, it's just not going to plan. I got distracted by werewolves and three not very bright bank robbers."

"If it's not one thing, it's another, isn't it?"

"More true words are seldom spoke."

"So what'll it be this morning?"

A coin was placed on the bar surface. "Just a cup of coffee before I head over to Doc Brown's. I've learned the hard way that it's dangerous to be inattentive in an inventor's laboratory."

"Coffee coming right up."

James took a seat at the bar where a miner was already eating breakfast and looking over a newspaper. His eyes slid over the text and he turned back to the bar in front of him, then slid back. Something had caught his attention but he could place exactly what.

"...look, just take the bloody paper. I can't eat with you staring at me like that ya weirdo."

"Um... thanks. I think." James took the newspaper and scanned the text again, slower this time

_Engine City University Class Reunion A Flop_

_In 1867, Engine City University boasted a graduating class of over two hundred scientists, engineers, barristers and physicians. Over twenty years later barely seventeen have returned for the class reunion, the lowest attendance in ECU's eighty year history._

_Dean Walter Dangerfield has attributed the lack of participation to the two year delay as the ECU campus was repaired after the storm of 87. "If you invite graduates back for a twenty year reunion they expect it to be twenty years later, otherwise why call it a twenty year reunion at all?"_

_Among the alumni who made it, the mood was somber and subdued. "It's like the finest minds of our generation just dropped off the map," said astronomer and assistant director of the Olney Observatory, Harold Olney Jr. "I remember some really brilliant ideas flying around. David Ross and his alloys, John Cross and his wireless telegraph idea, Alex Fleming and his anti-consumption program. But I haven't seen their faces around and frankly I'm starting to wonder where everyone is."  
_

James tried to read the rest of the article but his eyes kept jumping back up to the mention of his father's name. Shaking his head, as if to get rid of all the possibilities and doubts by flinging them out his ears, he folded the newspaper and sprinted out the door.

Several buildings away, his impatient knocking eventually was rewarded by the door opening. Moira blinked at him. "Hello James, what's-"

"Here, read this."

Moira took the proffered paper and unfolded it. "Gardandi Coast Shark Attacks at an all time high?"

"Not the headline actually. Sorry, should have been more specific." James flipped the paper around and handed it back to Moira, with one hand pointing at the story. Moira followed his finger and began to read, eventually raising her eyebrows in surprise and comprehension.

"So your dad went to school at ECU? Okay, but so did I. So did a lot of people."

"Schools keep records, and the man the newspaper quoted knew my father personally. I just have to go there, find the records or somebody who knew him and follow the trail."

"But... but the man said that he didn't know where your dad was, or anyone else for that matter!"

"I didn't say it was a perfect plan but I don't really have a better alternative right now. I need to keep moving forward and if I'm lucky and keep my eyes open maybe I'll stumble over some other random clue that puts me on the right track. I only saw that newspaper because I was at the hostel and happened to be looking in the right direction at the right time."

"Well, can't argue with that. Hey, how set are you for money? Engine City was expensive when I was there and I bet it's even more so now."

James shrugged. "Not well. I'm almost completely broke."

"Hmmm. Hold that thought." Moira disappeared into her workshop and several loud knocking noises could be heard, until she returned at the door holding a bag in one hand. "This is about... multiply by four... yeah, this is about two hundred dollars. It should keep you going for a while."

James stepped back in surprise, almost tripping on the steps up to the door. "What? I can't accept that!"

"Sure you can! The bag is in my hand and then it goes in your hand! It's physics!"

"That's literally more money than I have ever had in my entire life! Not at any one time, I mean all together!"

"I'm sure you'll learn how to cope with it you silly man. Think of it as payment for the articles you helped me write, plus a massive advance on several more articles. Not to mention a token of appreciation for saving so many people."

"That was all just doing the right thing. And in several cases panicky self-preservation."

"Look, you can take the money the easy way or I can hit you over the head with it and stick it in your pocket."

"...usually when somebody is talking about your money or your life, he means to take it from you."

"And then the police are chasing after him, so that's self-defeating. My way is much smarter."

James reluctantly took the heavy bag and transferred it to a coat pocket. "I'm not sure how I'm going to pay you back for this."

"I do. Just keep doing what you're doing. Fix problems, rush in where soldiers fear to tread, and if you find something interesting send me a telegram about it. I slipped my address in there so it won't be hard at all to go to the telegraph office and send me a summary. In fact, I think you can start by asking around at the train yard. Spells or not you're technologically minded too, otherwise my Electropathic Poison Imploder would never have worked."

"Okay, fair enough. What do you want me to ask about at the train yard?"

"Well, be sure you ask the engineers and not the conductors or schedulers, but ask them if they know any tricks on getting extra pressure out of a steam engine, or how to make one run smoother."

"Railroad tips and tricks. Got it."

"Oh, and in case you get robbed, and some damned fool will always try in that city, get a weapon. Engine City isn't actually an engine but there's still so much technology your spells might not work right. Stay away from the waterfront at night, the old quarter at any time, and don't keep all your money in one pocket in case somebody makes a grab."

"Get a weapon, don't rely on magick, avoid the waterfront and old quarter, divide up money."

"That's right. And since that won't last you forever, start looking for ways you can use your mind to make money. There's already plenty of burly blokes who can do the hard labor better, longer, and for less money than you, so keep your eyes and mind open."

"Look for ways to make money using qualities most people there don't have."

"And that's all the advice I have on Engine City. While you're there, remember me to Professor Hoffman in the chemistry department, okay?"

"Sure."

"Alright! Good luck!"

**November 26, 1889, 11:08 AM**

The wagon creaked along the road, shaking from side to side as it hit rocks and holes. Holding the reins, a wrinkled old man peered out from between a bushy beard and equally bushy pair of eyebrows. "No, it's not a matter of where he grips it, it's a matter of weight ratios. A three pound bird simply can't carry a five pound coconut."

The old man's equally old and unequally bald companion spat on the road. "You're just repeating what that man said in the paper."

"He's an expert on birds so he would know."

"He also said bears burst into flame when it gets too hot because of all the grease, and dogs can't look up, and a whole lot of other hornswoggle."

"Did you just say hornswoggle?"

"I did just say hornswaggle!"

A loud, eardrum rending roar stopped the men, the cart, and the horses pulling the cart on the spot. Several loud crashes followed, and several dozen yards down the road a bear burst from the woodland, howling and smoking. In a matter of seconds it was gone again, leaving only agonized howls in its wake.

The two men looked at each other, then focused on the underbrush as more crashing and broken branches heralded another creature; a half-elf in a coat and satchel, staring fixedly at a map. "Stupid discount map. I am SO lost..." he said, before stumbling into the forest on the other side of the road.

The bearded man nodded to the bald one in a smug fashion, who shrugged. "Okay, but dogs CAN look up."


	6. It's a Hell of a Town

**November 26, 1889, 11:55 AM**

The young man didn't look up from the typewriter, nor did the visitor give any indication of identity, but the doors opened with a ringing noise just the same. "Governor, your twelve o' clock here to see you."

"Thank you Smythe."

The man within the office showed signs of developing a paunch that his well-tailored suit still managed to emphasize rather than conceal. Looking up from the fireplace, he nodded to his visitor.

"I'm glad you could make it on such short notice, General."

"Short is the only type of notice we seem to get these days."

"Too true. I suppose I could make small talk and discuss pleasantries for ten minutes before getting to my point but we've known each other far too long for that." The Governor sat down behind his desk and the General took one of the chairs in front of it. "I'll cut straight to the quick of it, Julian. I have received reports of suspicious requisitions and materiel transfers from within the second division. Wagons, horses, crates of rifles, even than gods-forsaken cracker your men are so fond of complaining about."

"It's called hardtack. You're right about the forsaken part."

"...well?"

"Well what, Governor?"

"You're taking this remarkably well, General."

"I've just been told that somebody under my command is a damned thief. How precisely am I supposed to take it?"

"Fair enough. Look, I'm a politician. I'm supposed to stay out of the limelight when the press is bad and hog the stage when it's good. But before I went into politics I lived on a farm, staring at the backside of a mule for fourteen hours out of every twenty four. I remember one raid from an orcish tribe pushed down here by Copperhead and that's one more than I care to remember. I also remember the Silverhead Army fighting them back. Cavalry charges and lines of riflemen and archers."

"Bit before my time, Governor."

The Governor stood up, walked over to a glass-front cabinet, and pulled out a bottle and a pair of glasses. "Well, I remember it. I know you don't much care for the Navy and they've made their distaste for you equally apparent. Admiral Lionheart especially. But he's got the ears of the people who hold onto the purse strings."

"Of course he does. Our capital city is also our main trading port and shipbuilding center."

"I wouldn't put it so directly, but as I said, I'm a politician. You're in charge of a modern Army and Lionheart leads a modern Navy and gods forbid if anyone attacks us, we can't afford to focus on one to the exclusion of the other."

"Do you have anyone in mind? As possible attackers?"

"What? No, I haven't heard anything if that's what you mean. Popular opinion of course vacillates between the Unified Kingdom's Industrial Council and the Motorhead Empire, but I think the Industrial Council likes us better as trading partners, rebellious colony or not. They're not going to come all the way from Arcanum to settle a sixty year old grudge when there's money to be made."

"Motorhead, then? Anything I should be doing?"

"Julian, you're getting ahead of me. Obviously Styron intends to use that force he's building up. Military forces are too expensive to maintain just for show. Unfortunately, that is the argument made by everyone who wants to cut your support, and the arguments you and Lionheart make against each other. And when your own people are playing fast and loose with the requisition forms it makes the other side sound much better."

"So why tell me this? Doesn't this violate protocol on multiple levels?"

"Yes. I wanted to give you a chance to nip this in the bud, find the leak and plug it, before it results in something larger and more costly. Something we can ill afford to have tying our wallet hands if - or when - Styron comes knocking on our doors."

"Understood Governor. I'll find who's responsible for this and take it out of his hide." The General saluted, about-faced, and marched out of the office. The Governor looked at the General's glass, left untouched, and downed it himself.

**November 26, 1889, 12:44 PM**

The officer snapped to attention when the doors opened. "General Winters, Sir!"

"As you were Major. Anything come up while I was meeting with the Governor?"

The major picked up a folder and began leafing through the papers therein. "Supply transfers are almost complete, and troop reassignments have been signed and delivered. You received several coded missives in the interim. And there's..." The young officer looked uncomfortable for a moment.

"Well? What is it?"

"Something's come up regarding Captain Casdin."

"I see. Or I will. Let's step into my office."

The General's quarters were austere and small, as utilitarian as the junior officer's accommodations, but arranged with a severe neatness and a pair of decorative pistols mounted on the wall as the only concession to their occupants' rank. The General sat down on a rickety chair behind a rickety desk and pulled another file folder from the stacks on each side. "I was under the impression it was an outbreak of mass hysteria prompted by some irresponsible adventurers selling cursed loot."

"Captain Casdin's report confirms the presence of cursed artifacts in Fairfax. He also states that the hysteria was more than just people panicking. There are... he uses the word 'specimens' attacking people, and their weapons are not always functioning properly."

"A powerful magickal field then."

"The evidence appears to indicate that."

The General snapped the folder shut and placed it back on top of the pile. "This could have unexpected benefits. The Governor called me to warn me about suspicious activity in my supply department."

"Do you think he knows, sir?"

"If he knew, I doubt very much he'd try to warn me. He knows just enough to be a hindrance, but not enough to be dangerous. At least not yet. And with Casdin tied up dealing with this sudden magickal field and monsters, that removes half the opposition in one fell swoop."

"He has put in a request for a specialist to help determine the cause of the field and nature of the specimens."

"Of course. Hmmm. Fairfax is right on the main rail line to the south, isn't it?"

"Yes sir. It's the last stop until Lighthouse Point."

"Alright. Arrange for a specialist to be sent down by horse and wagon. Send the paperwork through standard channels. It would be foolhardy to send a magickal expert by rail, so the delay will explain itself. Also, as of today, no more supply paperwork fudging. I want the Governor to think I've run the hypothetical thief underground for a bit. Finish up all ongoing operations and then burn our bridges. We'll get by with what we have."

"Understood General. Will that be all sir?"

"Yes. If there's anything in these coded messages that concerns our plans, I'll send for you."

"Very good General."

**November 26, 1889, 2:02 PM**

James collapsed on the dusty bed in the dusty attic corner of a dusty old building. The old lady had a face like a prune that had spent too long in the tub that was sucking on a lemon, and a disposition to match. But she had a room to let and he had money to pay rent and eventually they reached an understanding that James suspected favored the old lady much more than it did himself.

Absent-mindedly, he reached into his coat and pulled out the dagger that had been pointed in his direction earlier. The half-orc was strong and fast, to be sure, but he was also overconfident, assuming everyone would be intimidated by the point of a dagger in their back. Perhaps it worked on most people, but not those who could charge the surface of their bodies with electrical force.

After dragging the unconscious body into a darkened alley, a brief role reversal took place and James found himself taking the mugger's meager personal possessions, which amounted to a handful of silver and copper coins, a broken box camera, a pair of worn and scuffed leather shoes, and the aforementioned dagger. Running his fingers over the edge of the blade, James found himself empathizing with his would be attacker; alone in the world with nobody to turn to, and nothing to call his own.

Then he remembered the half-orc calling him "sharp ears" in a blatant display of racist hypocrisy, and it all vanished in a puff of logic. Some drifting dust found its way into James' nose and he sneezed, causing the bed to creak dangerously.

"I wish I knew Call Winds," he mumbled to himself, then sat up and snorted, half from the dust and half from derision. "No wimmin, no cookin, no drinkin and no magickin" had been the old lady's terms of the rent - or list of demands, if the tone meant anything. James pulled out the old paper he had found in the rubbish bin and started leafing through it.

"Museum Renovations...Train Station Schedules Slip... More Shark Attacks Along Gardandi Coastline... Vigilante Strikes Again in Warehouse District... makes me glad I was born in a small town, Phillip or not." The paper was folded up and tossed at the foot of the bed, raising even more dust. Coughing, James made his way to the door and headed out, locking it behind him. "Just because the paper got me here doesn't mean the paper will help me now that I am here."

**November 26, 1889, 4:00 PM**

"What do we have on the Vigilante showing up in the prison tower? Do we know if it's the same guy? Did he leave that weird calling card of his? Why isn't anyone answering me?" The man puffed on a cigar like a factory smokestack, running between desks and drowning out the clatter of typewriters. "Gallagher! Is the evening edition ready to go to bed yet?"

A dwarf in a shop apron soaked in ink grumbled something dwarven under his breath, then called out "We're still waiting for word on the front page."

"Blast it! Okay, move the second page to the front page, split the second page between ads and grab something from the filler file for pages three and four. NOW! We're on a deadline!" The man stormed into his office and slammed his door loud enough to rattle the window in said door that announced to all and sundry his position as editor in chief. Pulling some letters out of his in box, he began opening them and perusing the contents. Most of the time the letters were crumpled into balls with a laugh and tossed into a waste basket already full to the brim, while others were set aside in the out box. The process took less than a minute for each letter, including opening the envelope, as the man's eyes bounced back and forth like a shuttlecock in a game of badminton.

After opening the sixth letter, the pattern was thrown off. He read the letter twice, then a third time, and slowly looked up to an old-style tin-type photograph hanging from a wall of similar memorabilia.

"STOP THE PRESSES!"

**November 26, 1889, 8:00 PM**

"Ow. Ow. Owowowow." James limped down the alleyway, holding one knee in his hand. Behind him, a scrawny man in raggedy clothing groaned. While the man had obviously expected a knee to his groin, due to his use of the protective armor in that region, he apparently did not expect the knee to be charged with electricity. After satisfying himself that his knee was not broken, James grabbed the man by the legs and pulled him into the shadows.

"This is the second time in one day somebody has tried to rob me. You really know how to make a guy feel welcome in this city." The attacker's wallet held an inordinately large amount of money for somebody who would otherwise be forced to rob people in dark alleys, and as a final insult, James stripped off the man's warm boots before picking him up and carrying him out into the street. The man was dropped head first into a rubbish bin and James moved along with as much haste as his aching knee permitted.

"Why, why, why did I never learn to heal myself?"

**November 27, 1889, 1:52 AM**

The observatory door squealed open and squealed shut again, and a voice called from the darkness within. "Is that you Mr. Hathaway?"

"It is. I apologize for my tardiness, but I am not well versed in night time navigating without aid of artificial illumination."

"I assure you it will be well worth it. It takes considerable time for the eye to acclimate to the darkness. I have taken the extra time to make adjustments to the telescope; it should focus on the planet Shakarr throughout the night without any further guidance from us."

Mr. Hathaway fumbled his way through the dark until the hands of the speaker helped him into a seat beneath the focus of the telescope. "Thank you Dr. Olney. I have quite enough bruises already."

"It helps when you work here long enough and know where everything is even in the dark. Now, if you will place your eye against the focus, we may begin our observations. With luck, we will see the phenomena again. It would be nice if I knew I wasn't the only one seeing this."

"Whatever it is, I can't promise it will be precisely newsworthy. Mr. Dogson is given to strange shifts of mood, and that is the most complimentary way to state it."

The two men sat in silence as the mechanisms of the telescope clicked and ticked, until there was a banging noise against the metal. "Ow!"

"Mr. Hathaway? Are you alright?"

"Ugh. I saw- I don't know what I saw. It startled me. But it's surely real. I hope it is, otherwise I'd feel rather silly."

Dr. Olney sighed. "So it is not just a figment of my own over-strained imagination. What did you see?"

"A puff of green iridescence spreading like a mushroom and fading."

"As did I. If only we knew what they signified."

**November 27, 1889, 9:00 AM**

James carefully opened one eye and looked around. He was back in the dusty room, which was nice except for the fact that it was the dusty room, filled with dust. Getting up from the dusty bed and sneezing repeatedly, James resolved to deal with the dust regardless of the old lady's rules. Especially the old lady's rules; what would have prompted "no magickin" except seeing his ears?

The window was opened and James held out his hands to each side. A sparking, shimmering spheroid formed around him and the dust in the air began to swirl. Some particles rushed toward the barrier, and others away from it. After a few seconds, the barrier fell, as did the aggregate of dust, and James started looking around for something that might function as a dustpan and brush.

Rapid angry knocking from the door distracted him from this task. "Are you casting spells up here?"

"No."

"My clock just started running backwards!"

"I'm not using magick!"

Opening the door a crack, James found himself staring into the landlady's twisted face and, oddly enough, having fond memories of the face of the half-orc that had tried to mug him the previous day.

"Look, do you have a dustpan and brush? I'm trying to keep this place clean."

"My clock was running the wrong w-"

"Was it a long case clock with a pendulum?"

"Don't interrupt me young man! That clock has been in my family for three gen-"

"If it's a pendulum powered clock the escapement can wear down. Call a watchmaker. I'm an electrician, I don't know how to make parts that small. Thank you and have a nice day."

Closing the door and retreating back into the room, James considered his options, then took a book out of his satchel and scooped the dust with his hand onto the surface, to dump it out the window. Eventually the floor was semi-clean even if the rest of the room wasn't spotless. The book had the lingering dust wiped off and returned to its place in the satchel, and James looked at the window.

"...maybe in an emergency."

After checking that the old lady wasn't outside his door anymore, James proceeded to leave the room via normal means.

Out on the busy morning street James shove his hands into his pockets and headed down the street. To a mind accustomed to navigating small towns and wilderness, large cities were a maze, and he was not yet willing to invite ridicule, trickery or further attempts at robbery by asking for directions and displaying ignorance of the environment.

A young paperboy was hawking his wares and James recanted on his previous statement on the utility of the newspaper; even if it didn't help him with the task at hand it was never a bad idea to be informed. Some coins were dropped in the youngsters hands - probably more than the cost of the paper, if the boy's expression meant anything, and James took the proffered paper in return.

And stared at the headline in befuddlement.

_Lone Wanderer Returns! Town of Gravelpit Saved From Werewolves!_


	7. Back to School Special

**November 27, 1889, 9:45 AM**

Peering inside the offices, James took in the sight of barely controlled chaos. Men and women of all races - except female dwarves, naturally - were running around carrying papers, typing madly on the new typewriters, and yelling at each other. In fact the noise of the staff almost drowned out the sound of the massive printing press that must have been down in the basement if the vibration was anything to judge by.

Too many people, moving too fast and with no predictable pattern. It was time to improvise. James stepped out into the chaos and tried to dodge typists and editors and reporters. Fortunately the target of his excursion was clearly labeled across the room. The office door flew open before James was close enough to open it and a man walked out, shouting. "Dogson! Why'd you sell page three ads to Gaither's Foundry when page three was reserved for the Marshall's Market?"

"What? I didn't! Page three was clear when I left!"

"Not when you got back! Split the page three ads in two and give them both a discount. I have to do everything around here! YOU! What are you doing standing around not doing anything? You're FIRED!"

James stared at the editor's fingertip, currently pointed at him. "I don't even work here."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really."

"Fine then. You're hired. Now you're fired! Clear out your desk and don't every let me catch you here again!" The editor turned and barked at the room. "What are you staring at? We're on a deadline! We need to beat the Daily Scroll!"

The door slammed as the editor returned to his office, and James looked around. If anyone had a responsibility to actually get rid of him, they were too busy making a newspaper to get around to him. James followed the editor inside.

"I thought I told you to get out of my newspaper!"

"Who's the Lone Wanderer?"

"...what?"

James pulled the newspaper out of his coat pocket and tossed it on the editor's desk. "Your headliner today. Who's the Lone Wanderer?"

"Are you serious? You don't know who the Lone Wanderer is?"

"I grew up in an isolated little town where the closest thing to news was when old lady Palmer made gooseberry sweet rolls, and well-traveled means you've been a mile upriver. Enlighten me."

The editor pointed to the wall of the office. Preparing himself for a surprise attack when he looked away, James obliged.

"...whoa."

The wall was covered in old photographs and preserved newspapers under glass. Headlines proudly claimed the independence of the Republic of Silverhead from the Unified Kingdom, the opening of a distillery, silver strikes across the land, a thwarted assassination attempt, half a dozen events of fair to great significance, and through them all a common theme; a half elf in a mix of enchanted and scientific adventuring gear.

"So the Lone Wanderer was some sort of adventurer? Ran around, looted ancient ruins, fought bandits, that sort of thing?"

"The Lone Wanderer was much, much more than just an adventurer. His exploits took him all over Silverhead and made him as much a part of our national history as Geoffrey Thomas or Frank Stover. He helped start half a dozen businesses, including this very newspaper, back when it was just my grandfather with a quill pen and a box of lead type. They say he was both a master mage and an expert technologist, which should be impossible."

"Not impossible, but of course it's a careful balance. So you think he's back? Actually, let me ask a better question; what happened to him?"

The editor shrugged and settled into his chair. "Nobody knows. Adventurers are like that; they come into town, sell off their loot, buy supplies, help people with their problems, and then they leave and sometimes you never see them again. The lucky and skilled ones move on to other adventures, most of them die. Obituaries for even half decent adventurers can run to three pages long. But obviously it's the Lone Wanderer again, the mix of magick and science is exactly his style."

"Forty years later?"

"Why not? Half-elves can live to be four hundred, even longer with magick. What's a few decades then? Probably just got back from vacation in Cattan."

"...riiiight. Well, now that I know that, everything else makes sense."

**November 27, 1889, 12:22 PM**

The gates of the university were large, ornate, and impressively thick. Either the grounds used to be a private estate, James reasoned, or the Board of Regents expected some brighter than average burglars to break in looking for all the tuition money. There didn't appear to be a guard post, an elaborate door knocker, a bell pull rope or even a telegraph key to contact those inside for purposes of ingress.

"By invitation only, no doubt," James mused. The walls by the gates were suitably high to complement them and make climbing them directly a difficult proposition. Or at least they looked like that; the possibility of a secret disguised entrance and exit used by students after hours to sneak out into the city to get raging drunk was still very possible. Unfortunately the campus grounds were so extensive that there was no way to watch all of it at the same time, so trying to spot students sneaking out would be hampered by distance and line-of-sight, on top of the darkness and the finite number of hiding places.

James leaned back against the gate and let his mind wander. The sun was shining its best through a haze of smoke in the air, and the sounds of birds and wildlife were replaced with horse hooves on cobblestones, people talking, the background noises of machines operating, and in the distance beneath it all, the ocean beating against the shore. And a creaking noise, now, somewhere much closer-

For a split second there was the sensation of free fall, and then impact. James levered himself up and looked back; the imposing and otherwise impenetrable gates were not only unlocked, but so well balanced and oiled that they opened with only a few pounds of force acting upon them. James pulled himself up and dusted as much dust off as possible, and marched down the path to the university buildings with the unmistakable gait of a man attempting to pretend that he didn't just make a fool of himself.

**November 27, 1889, 12:42 PM**

"Excuse me, Dean Dangerfield. There's a young man here to see you."

"I'm too busy to see anyone! I told you that earlier!"

"Uh, no you didn't sir."

"Really? I'm almost sure I did. Well, I'm still to busy to see anyone! Tell him to come back tomorrow!"

"Very well, sir, I'll- wait, you can't go in th-!"

The Dean looked up from the speaking tube as the door opened. The uninvited visitor took one look at the Dean and stopped as the secretary rushed in behind him. "I'm sorry sir, he just barged in and-"

The Dean put down the croquet mallet and sat behind his desk. "Never mind Gretta. Okay, who are you and what the hell do you want from me?"

"I thought croquet was played outside."

"It is, but a little practice never hurt anyone. I'll ask my questions again-"

"Not necessary. I'm James Cross, and I'm looking for information about my father, John Cross."

"John Cross... oh, wait, I think I know who you mean. Majored in electrical engineering, minored in civil engineering. Yeah, Johnathan Cross. You look a lot like he did back then, too. Your father, you said?"

"Yes."

"Alright, so what do you want from me?"

James shrugged. "Honestly? I don't know exactly what. He didn't talk about himself much when I was growing up. I probably know more about you than I do about him and I only just met you."

"That sure narrows it down." The Dean picked up a letter, slit it open with a penknife and glanced at it. "Young man, do you have any idea how much work I have to do here?"

"Enough to justify your large office, but not so much you can't practice lawn sports."

After a short pause, the Dean put the letter back down. "You're a lot like your father in other ways, too."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't intended as a compliment. Your father was irreverent, stubborn, disrespectful, and a few other terms I'd like to use except there's a lady in earshot."

The speaking tube buzzed. "Would you like me to close the tube for a short time, sir?"

"No, Gretta, that won't be necessary." The Dean stared at James speculatively for a moment, then leaned forward in his chair. "Answer me this question, if you will. Are you looking for James Cross because your mother said that he was your father and you've never met him, so you're looking for information about him in places you heard he was associated with?"

"Actually the opposite. My mother died shortly after I was born. My dad raised me pretty much alone, except for one old housekeeper when I was only a few years old. Grew up in a small town, dad basically built the entire electrical system and maintained it, and I guess he wanted to groom me to be his replacement because he just left one day without any warning and just a note to say goodbye."

"...hmmm. Okay, so if I understand this correctly, John Cross married an elf, had you, and then raised you alone for... wait a minute, that can't be right. How old are you?"

"Nineteen years old."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm nineteen years old."

The Dean stared at James for a moment, and for the first time in the conversation he seemed to appear genuinely concerned. "You're saying you're only nineteen years old?"

"Yes, and this is the third time I've tried to explain that. What is the significance of my age, anyway?"

"...young Mr. Cross... a phrase I never thought I'd have to say again... nineteen years for a half-elf is roughly the equivalent of twelve or thirteen years for a human."

James blinked. "So? I'm well aware of the different scales of lifespan for different races."

"Apparently not. The age of majority for half elves varies depending on regional custom but it's always between thirty and forty years old."

"I mostly take after my dad, what with him raising me. And it's not been a problem so far. Most of the people I've met don't even notice, so it must not be that obvious. Or important, for that matter."

The Dean took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes for a moment before replacing them. "Mr. Cross, given that your father essentially abandoned you for whatever reason, I cannot in good conscience assist you in finding him again. It can't be good for you to be raised by that man."

James stared at the Dean and clenched a fist. The lights flickered for a moment. "How many children do you have, Dean Dangerfield?"

"Beg pardon?"

"You. Father. Yes or no."

"I can't see the relevance, but very well. I have no children. Lifelong bachelor. Married to my work, I suppose."

"My father taught me to walk and talk and read and write and everything I currently know about electrical engineering and even though it hurt his pride he asked around for people to tutor me in the art of magick, because he knew my mother would want that. He wasn't perfect. No one in this world is. But he did his best and frankly considering how many people I've helped since leaving home he must have done _something_ right. You don't have a son to compare to me. You are not entitled to an opinion in this matter. Good day."

James turned around and opened the office door, storming down the hall. The secretary picked up the speaking tube again.

"Do you want me to call the porters, sir?"

After a short pause, the tube was picked up. "Don't bother. They couldn't stop his father, they won't stop him either. As long as he's not attacking instructors or setting the campus on fire, leave him be."

**November 27, 1889, 2:53 PM**

"Ey, what's eating you?"

"Hmm?" James looked up into the face of a student. "Sorry, what did you need?"

"Nothing, just wanted to get your attention. You were looking really serious, but you didn't have a book out so it couldn't have been final exams and besides I've never seen you before."

James blinked at the verbal onslaught and got up from the table he was moping at. "Ah, alright then. Name's James Cross. Came here to find information on my dad since he was a student here years back, but it's not going well."

"Sorry to hear that." The student held out a hand. "Name's Mark O'Connor, but you can call me Mork. Everyone else does. Mork the Orc. Well, technically half orc. Well, technically quarter orc. But you know people treat half orcs just as bad as full orcs so I might as well go all the way, right? Bugger em, what do they know."

"I can get behind that viewpoint. Little bastard named Phillip called me sharp ears from the time he could talk to the time I left to come here."

"Sticks and stones, right?"

"Well, right up until I started fighting back. Bullies and level playing fields don't go well together."

Mork laughed and held out his hand. James shook it. "Glad to meet you James. Who was your father?"

"Just some electrical science student. Johnathan Cross. Dean wasn't much help. Probably should have been more circumspect in my inquiries."

"Well, the Dean's got his own little world and everyone else just lives in it. If he doesn't like you that's probably a point in your favor."

"That doesn't help my search but it does make me feel a lot better, so thanks for that at least. So you're a student here? That implies a field of study."

"Quite so. Mathematics. But only because I love music. The sounds produced by a string or tube can be determined by mathematical analysis of the length, diameter, and material composition of the instrument being acted on. Theoretically, all music may be translated into mathematical statements. In practice, nobody has tried since the elven wanderer-mystic La'Reke the Pathfinder wrote his monographs on them. And most people file those under magick."

"Think I remember hearing about him during my magickal training. Didn't he come up with the idea that a right triangle's sides always had a constant relationship with each other, regardless of size or the angles of the other corners?"

"That's the one. You're a mage, then? With a father that studied science? That must have been awkward growing up."

"Not really. He taught me electrical engineering too, basic math, mechanics, stuff like that. I suppose if I'd concentrated on one or the other I'd have gone further, but dad wanted me to have options."

"Speaking as somebody who's had doors slammed in his face through no fault of his own, having options sounds like a very good idea. So your dad taught you science and I'm guessing your mom taught you magick?"

"I'm sure she would have if she could have but she died literally hours after I was born."

"Oh. Sorry. Didn't realize."

James shrugged. "Not a problem. As long as we're being social, how are your parents, in health and whatnot?"

"Oh, they're fine. I think. My mother does laundry, stitches up clothes, that kind of thing. And my father, well, he's a half orc and the pay for a half orc is so far below a living wage that he didn't even bother. Fortunately he's strong enough to bend iron bars and he can take quite a few stab wounds before he even starts to slow down so he's out adventuring."

"That's good money, if you can find trouble before it finds you."

"Yep. That's partly why I'm here. He comes back home to check on us and bring money. He used to send it by mail or courier but apparently some of the people he hired were skimming a little off the top, if you know what I mean."

James rubbed his temples. "Stealing from an adventurer. Try as I might I can't think of anything more suicidally stupid."

"Especially when he's got a sword as tall as he is." Mork took out an old battered pocket watch. "Oh bugger. I've got to get to class within thirty seconds."

"That's not good."

"Time keeps on slipping. Don't suppose you know any magick that could get me there in time?"

"Sorry, just electrical Force and elemental Fire."

"Didn't think so but I had to ask. Nice meeting you!"

"Yeah, you too," James said to the rapidly disappearing student.

**November 27, 1889, 4:13 PM**

Some books were shuffled around on the table to make more room. The volumes were an eclectic mix of history, science, and philosophy. Oh, and a baker's dozen yearbooks.

"There you are."

James turned to see Mork behind him with a stack of books. "Hello there."

"Brushing up on physics?"

"A little bit. More history than anything else. Found some interesting information about my father's graduating class, if nothing else. Which is exactly what I found about him, nothing else."

"Hmmm." Mork put his stack of books down on the table. "What year did he graduate in?"

"Fall of 1867, looks like. Strange to see him without a beard."

"That sounds about right."

"What's right?"

"Well, this library's pretty big, wouldn't you say?"

James stared at Mork. "Is this a trick question? I got lost four times just looking for the yearbooks."

"That's because paper records take up a great deal of space. And about ten years ago there was this big project to convert some of the information into more compact forms."

"Are we talking really small type?"

Mork grinned. "Tell me, James. Have you ever heard of a machine called an Analytical Engine?"


	8. Mork's Cavalcade of Exposition

**November 27, 1889, 4:45 PM**

"OW!"

"Yeah, got to watch your head down here."

James glared at the pipe that ambushed him and followed Mork down a creaking staircase. The air was humming with noise, which agitated the dust and made it even more likely some motes would go up the nose of a trespasser. Mork gestured to a door with a large sign declaring "NO MAGICKAL ARTIFACTS BEYOND THIS POINT" and beneath it, "PLACE ENCHANTED ITEMS POTIONS OR SCROLLS IN STORAGE ALCOVES".

"Yeah, the magick versus technology everybody remembers, so the sign isn't really necessary. What most people don't realize is it's not good to let dust get inside it. Throws off the timing, and some parts run hot enough the dust might cause an explosion."

"Wait, is it safe for me to go in there? I know a few spells."

"You said you knew some electricity, though, right? Just think science. And don't get too close to anything with moving parts."

Inside the door were fans behind protective grating, ferrying the dust from the room to some far distant place. At the other end of the air cleaning room, Mork opened another door, and James hesitated as the wall of sound came at him. Mork handed over what looked like a helmet.

"Cork and wool! Muffles the engine noise!"

Helmets in place, Mork gestured onward, and James followed into the wonderful world of mechanical mathematics. Well, Mork certainly found it wonderful.

"The big spinning drum uses magnetic coils! All the information is stored in different combinations of coil states! The armatures carry the coil states to a set of secondary coils and relays, and they link to the mechanical gear-racks!"

"I thought these things used punched cards and paper tapes!"

Mork laughed and made his way to a desk with an elaborate typewriter attached to the surface. "Punch cards are for the 80s! We're about the start the 90s! All these information storage systems and calculators route into this typewriter terminal, so now we just need to know what to look for! Tapes are just for backups!"

James picked up a section of a long ream of paper. "How will we know it when we find it?"

"That's just the Master Spool! See those number strings next to different lines? It means the Engine is handling about half a dozen different operations through the teletype lines! It's called time sharing, the University makes a lot of money that way! Nobody will notice if we slip a search request in the queue!"

"I'll take your word for it!"

Mork sat down at the typewriter and began typing. "Okay, I was a bit overconfident there! Turns out somebody else is already using the library unit we need!"

"This does not surprise me as much as it should."

"According to the address and the listing in the directory, it's just some mining company! We can just suspend their work for a few minutes while we check that unit! They'll probably chalk it up to a squirrel on the line!"

**November 27, 1889, 5:02 PM**

"Excuse me General, we have a problem."

General Winters looked up from his reports. "Oh, really? Which one?"

"Sir?"

General Winters grabbed the folders on his desk and threw them into the air. "Are you speaking of the intel from inside the Maritime Control Center about Lionheart's secret project we _still_ don't know anything about? Or how about Doctor Ross just vanishing off the face of the earth after we sunk two thousand dollars into his crackpot research? Or the scout patrol that came back from Mt. Wolfcastle without their heads? Or is this something completely _new_ getting thrown in our way?"

The aide looked nervously at the General. "Er... something new, sir."

Winters pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sorry. Shouldn't fly off the handle like that, but it's bizarre. A year and a half of planning and preparation go off without a hitch, and in the last month there's been obstacle after obstacle. Uncanny. Go ahead, let's hear it."

The aide took a deep breath. "The simulations we were running on the ECU Analytical Engine just went down."

"What do you mean, down? Did somebody turn the system off? I was told they keep it running constantly."

"Constantly except for scheduled maintenance. And if there was a fire or a breakdown alarms would be going off all over campus. It's a very expensive machine."

"So the machine is still running, it's just not doing whatever it is we want it to be doing."

"Yes sir. Our time share access was suspended. Here's the last sheet we got out of the teletypewriter."

The aide handed a section of paper with perforated edges, which the General waved away. "I wouldn't understand what half of that means, and I'd misinterpret what I did understand. You tell me. What happened?"

"Our use of the engine's time share was interrupted. It gives date and time, and the Admin credentials to suspend both calculation and library access operations. We don't know who has what code specifically but it would have to be somebody very high in the mathematics department or faculty."

General Winters looked at his other reports. "Alright... first things first. How much of the simulation is left to run?"

"It's about three quarters done. If they'd waited another two hours we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

"Like I said, it's uncanny. Can we make do with the part that is done?"

"No sir, it's worse than useless. Until the Analytical Engine finishes processing the whole simulation, we won't have the whole picture."

"Alright... assuming we do get the Engine working for us again, can we continue the simulation where it left off?"

"Yes sir, the operation was just suspended. If we do get access again, we can start it right where it was stopped."

"If being the important word. Damn... who else uses the Engine?"

"Just about every business in Engine City. It's not practical to run a time share teletype line outside the city limits, but some people with deep pockets do anyway. There's the Army and the Navy, and various organizations across Silverhead bring in problems for batch processing on site."

"Hmmm. If the Navy uses it, could they have been watching the Engine somehow? Seeing what we're doing and stopping it?"

"They'd have to be at the monitoring station the last few hours. Meaning they'd need to have a mole inside the University staff in the upper echelon of the faculty. Otherwise the information is just sent back to our terminal here. And the simulation terms are not explicit. Just arbitrary symbol strings meaningless to anyone who doesn't have the key, and that's here."

"What about the line itself? Could somebody have traced the line here?"

"That's certainly possible. Anyone who knows a little bit about electricity could determine what line was active at any given time. Tracing a physical line, even through several switching stations, is easy."

"So somebody might be suspicious."

"Well, an Army facility using the Engine isn't out of the ordinary, sir. If they know the physical line goes to an Army facility but the time share slot was paid for by a mining company, then they might start to wonder what's going on. The rest of the military pay for their timeshare up front. Mostly so they don't have access cut off at a critical time."

General Winters stood up from his desk. "And so we come full circle. If we didn't need secrecy, we wouldn't have lost access. If we didn't use secrecy, we'd never get away with access. And if this is just some undergraduate from the math department trying to check his thesis for errors or something when he thinks nobody's watching, I'm not going to overreact and show my hand. Still... send the word out and activate our sleeper agent in ECU. Have him watch the math department for a while."

"Yes sir. Anything else, sir?"

Winters sat back down and picked up a newspaper. "Just let me know if you see a half-elf running around solving problems. Lone Wanderer returns... gods help us if _that_ turns out to be true."

"Yes sir."

**November 27, 1889, 5:35 PM**

"Wow. My ears are still ringing."

"You get used to it eventually. Speaking of which, you're talking too loud."

"Sorry." James looked through the printout, papers full of more information about his dad than he managed to learn about the man in his entire life. "This isn't going to get you in trouble, is it?"

"Nah. That override code belongs to one of the more absent minded math professors. So absent minded he has no idea how to hide things that he should keep hidden. I'm not saying I ever stole the answers to a final exam or anything like that, but I can assure you, it would not be difficult to pull off."

"But if they compare the code used and the time it was used with the professor's alibi-"

"Absent minded professor. Once he came to class without any trousers on and it took him half an hour before he thought to ask why it was so cold. Men like that have no alibi, ever. And because he has tenure, nobody will raise a fuss. The University will blame it all on the weather or an elf trader walking past the switching station." Mork twirled the end of am imaginary mustache. "The perfect crime, if you can call it a crime at all."

"All this time and I didn't know half of this stuff. And still wouldn't if not for you. Looks like I owe you."

"Not really. And even if you did we wouldn't know for sure until you dig through all that and find something useful. It's that kind of information explosion that prompted storing all the information in analytical engine reading formats."

"How does anyone get to that information if the machine's always busy?"

"For the last month or so, they don't. There was a limited-access terminal in library at one point but somebody managed to completely wreck it. By accident, they think. That machinery doesn't like being handled in certain ways. It was taken in for repairs in the engineering department and it still isn't back yet. That's higher education for you."

"Still probably beats the one room schoolhouse, filled with other children who hated me and a teacher that looked the other way."

"Actually, that's fairly common here as well. The building is bigger, and there are more of them, and there are more people who give consent implicitly by not voicing opposition. On the other hand, there are more places to hide. And the equipment and reference library is much larger."

"So I saw. The library would make it all worth it. I've been having to limp along with my dad's old textbooks and a general magickal almanac of sorts that used to belong to my mom."

Mork stopped in his tracks for a second. "Oh. Good thing you said something. I need to get home. My mother tends to worry if I'm not home before six of the evening. Say, would you care to come over and meet her?"

"Well... I don't want to impose."

"No imposition. She likes meeting new people."

"Then... I guess I could come over and say hello and such."

"Great! I'll lead the way."

James scratched his head as he followed. "I should warn you, I have essentially no experience at the whole 'bringing friends home from school' business."

"Nor do I." Mork tapped an elongated incisor.

**November 27, 1889, 6:12 PM**

James found himself staring uncomfortably at the tenement's interior. Years of baseline assumptions developed from rural small town experience had to be suspended and revised in the face of the industrialized city, but that wasn't all. Every coughing fit, every dim filament bulb flickering in the corridor, struck him as an affront somehow.

Effrontery or not, most of the inhabitants of the building seemed to be busy and social. Fragments of conversations reached James' ears, but never enough of any one exchange to grasp what was being discussed by anybody. Mork made his way through the throng with practiced ease until reaching a door. After a few knocks the door was opened a crack.

"Hello mom, it's me."

The door closed again, prompting James to wonder if Mork had accidentally found the wrong door, until the door opened again. An older woman, with hair as fair as it was frazzled, embraced Mork, and James leaned back slightly as he saw a pistol in one hand.

"Good to see you Mark. Been studying hard?"

"More like hardly studying, but I have a legitimate excuse for that." The student pried himself from the embrace and motioned to James. "This is James. I met him while he was looking for information on his father at ECU."

The old woman held out a hand in a gesture of greeting, or at least what would have been one if it hadn't held a derringer. It took quite a lot of willpower not to dive out of the way or form a protective Shield, but somehow James managed it.

"Oh, dear. I forgot. Sorry, there's been a spate of burglaries and I refuse to take any chances." The derringer disappeared into the folds of some sort of sewing apron and the hand returned, which James shook. "Julia O'Connor, and I am most pleased to meet you."

"James Cross, at your service."

"Won't you come inside? I believe I have some tea brewing."

"Thank you, Mrs. O'Connor."

The transition to the inside of the apartment was astounding; whereas the rest of the building James had seen was in various states of disrepair and rather grimy at their cleanest, the inside of the apartment was clean, tidy, and well lit. A form of knitted artwork declared in stitched letters, "COME IN, SIT DOWN, RELAX, CONVERSE, IT'S NOT ALWAYS LIKE THIS, SOMETIMES IT'S WORSE" in between some flowers and vines, hung above a small fireplace that had been refitted with a steam radiator at some point.

"Admiring Mark's handiwork? He constructed it."

Mork shrugged. "Well, I designed it. The math was easy. Finding parts fitting the needed specifications took longer."

"Very nice." James held a hand near the radiator, feeling the heat. "More of an electrical engineer myself, so I'm afraid I can't appreciate all the technical nuances."

"In that case you should see Mark's generator."

Mark rolled his eyes. "Mom, I didn't bring James here just to brag about what I can scrounge from factory discards."

"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to embarrass you in front of your friend."

"I'm NOT embarrassed, it's just... never mind."

**November 27, 1889, 7:54 PM**

"And what about healing? Do you know any healing spells?"

James shook his head. "Considering some of the hazards I've run across, it seems like a serious oversight in my magickal education."

Mork put down a cup half filled with tea. "Alright then, the big one. Flight. Do you know how to fly?"

"Well, I don't know how to fly, but I do know how spells can be used for flight." James pulled a reference book out of his satchel and flipped through several pages. "There's two key colleges for that. Elemental Air, obviously, and also Conveyance. Air is fairly straightforward. If you wear the right clothes and you Call the Winds, you can direct them to lift you up like a kite. There's also Body of Air. Essentially gives you all the powers of an Air Elemental. And the weaknesses."

"Alright, what about Conveyance?"

"Unseen Force. If you've ever seen mages floating in mid air, that's what they're doing, using the force to hold themselves up. It says here it's a form of advanced meditation, teaching students to ignore all distractions." James skipped several pages ahead. "There's also, for those who have mastered metamorphosis, polymorphing themselves into a flying creature. There may be other ways, but I haven't found much mention of them in most of the books I was able to study, and I don't feel inclined to experiment."

"Right, because science and magick tend to be an explosive mix."

James scratched his chin. "Actually, it's because they're the type of experiments you have to be in the middle of to make work, so you'd want to get them right on the very first try. Like trying to use the explosive power of Fireflash to propel yourself up. Riding a series of explosions, or even one steady explosion of heat and fire. Get it wrong and they'll have to go on a scavenger hunt before they can give you a proper burial."

"Ugh. I see your point."

"My turn. I found one of these handbills at the University. Something about a correspondence course. Do you know why it's going on and on about different technological devices? My electrical engineering books focus mostly on the theoretical principles, not the practical end results. Are they out of date? They were my dad's after all."

James held up a textbook and Mork took it, turning from chapter to chapter. "Well... it is a bit out to date in regards to some electrical refinements that have been made in the last... wait, who wrote all these notes in the margins?"

"My dad. He said he had to keep it up to date with his work."

"Well, in that case it's not nearly as out of date as the printer's labels would indicate." Mork handed the book back. "Actually the correspondence course format differs from the classroom study format mostly because of advertising. They emphasize the possibility of making useful objects or concoctions to give the undecided customer, for lack of a better word, something to look forward to. By the end of the same course of study, you learn the same information, but whereas people like myself are thinking, 'oh no, final exams!' the people taking the correspondence course are thinking, 'oh happy day, I can finally build that mechanical spider and have somebody to talk to!' And that's not an exaggeration, if you're wondering. I actually heard somebody say that at the post office once."

"So it's just advertising?"

"Yes. Honestly, I think it was mostly written to appeal to the adventurers who aren't magickally inclined and have a lot of disposable income after selling off valuable gems or historical artifacts. But not all the people taking the courses are rich adventurers. So it could also be just a carryover from the University of Tarant. Some of the faculty are transplants."

The noises of a clock announcing the hour disrupted the chain of the conversation, and James looked at the machine with surprise. "Wait, is that clock accurate?"

"I hope so, or I've been late to all my morning classes for quite some time."

"I hate to meet and run like this but the last few times I was out this late I had some run ins with a few people who were looking for handouts and they weren't taking no for an answer. And I can't keep Jolting everyone who grabs me, sooner or later I'm going to hurt somebody who bumped into me in a crowd."

"I can see how that would be a problem. I'll see you out to the street. Sometimes those, ah, aggressive panhandlers take up residence inside poorly lit hallways instead of poorly lit alleyways."

**November 27, 1889, 9:52 PM**

Tables of numbers and lists of meaningless words scrolled by James eyes without really being seen. The large number of printed out sheets, back in the university, seemed like a spectacular turn of fortune. By the light of the dim candles by the window, the stack of papers seemed more like a haystack, with nary a glint of reflected light to hint at the location of the needle he hoped was somewhere inside. He had expected summaries and timelines, matching his experience with historical records and textbooks; this was raw data, unprocessed, unfiltered and almost completely unorganized.

James rubbed his eyes. "When Mork said there was an information explosion, he wasn't kidding."

The papers were quickly stacked and set off to the side of the desk, and James briefly pondered the next day's plan, inasmuch as his exhausted state of mind would allow. The railroad switch yard was one of his promised destinations for Doc Brown's writing, so he had to figure out where that was, get in without being accosted by linemen for not having a ticket and possibly for making their railroad watches run backwards, and actually talk to the engineers who handled the stuff that Brown cared about. That being the nitty-gritty details of engines and the transmission of power. Maintenance schedules and procedures, maybe. Efficiency ratings? Tips and tricks of the modern railroader? All of the above, or just one part, it was going to be impossible to remember all of it. It'd need writing down. And since telegrams charged by the word, it'd be beyond his means even using her massive contributions to his Find My Father Fund to just telegraph it back to Toone Town. It'd have to be packed up and sent by postal or courier service. Fortunately there seemed to be a few places in the city that could handle such jobs, maybe more if he asked around-

James' eyes, previously closed as he mused on the events of the coming day, snapped open. An unexpected variation on an old familiar feeling was making itself known. In the past, the moment of enlightenment as the next piece of a puzzle fell into place was a positive feeling, a bit like the rush of warmth he got from stoking the Inner Fire. This time, it was more like the bottom fell out of his stomach.

Telegrams conveyed information based on different combinations of electrical signals over wires, signals that varied in length. Telegram repeaters and teletypewriters could reproduce those signals by running a punched tape, or record a message being sent out by punching the tape as the message was being composed, then send it automatically once it was complete. But the punch tape patterns were not the same as the duration of electrical pulses over the wires - there were two codes, each made for a specific system. The telegraph codes were made for the ears of living creatures while the punch patterns were developed for mechanical cams and later electrical contacts used by machinery. A message in one medium literally could not be sent over another because the technology involved was completely different; thus, teletypewriters came with translators right from the factory, collections of shaped cam wheels that worked like the code wheels of ancient dwarven generals (and later, human conquerors).

But it wasn't as simple as just overlapping sets of characters or symbols. For the automated machinery, each symbol had to be represented by a unique combination of perforations in the tape, just as each symbol on the telegraph lines was a different combination of sounds in the right order. If each letter in a word took several times as many pieces of information to store it on a paper tape, then each word was proportionately larger as well. And the information on the elusive Dr. Cross hadn't come from a paper tape, but rather from a massive rotating drum using magnetic polarities stored on the surface... but it was ultimately typed out by the same teletypewriter device. It had to, the whole point of the time share system was to allow many different problems to be addressed by the same calculating engine at the same time, over considerable distances. Which meant that the massive magnetic information storage drum had to have stored the information in a code not unlike the patterns of punched and un-punched paper in a tape or set of instruction cards.

The old electrical engineering textbook was retrieved from its place in the satchel, and James turned to the last few pages. The textbook had several blank pages between the last printed word and the back cover, parts of the building block of modern printing called a signature that were left over after the original authors had run out of things to say. Dr. Cross had taken advantage of the blank pages to add his own contributions beyond the marginalia in the main text; those side notes just covered new developments in long standing fields, but these last page scribbles and sketches covered technology that had only been speculated about when the book was first printed. Electrically charged vibrations in the aether, unusual properties of resonance, and yes, the encoding and retrieval of information in the form of magnetic polarities.

Several tables were provided and James copied out some lines on a sheet of scratch paper. His father had included several different possible ways to measure polarity and charge, ranging from a base-2 on-and-off system all the way to a base-16 system using eight stages in either direction and a neutral blank state as a buffer. But the sketch for the read/write relay in the book looked nothing like the ones on the drum in the university basement, and it occurred to James that it would be easiest to just measure the presence or lack of a magnetic field at a specific area; trying the measure different field strengths and polarities would be subject to problems if the reading armature wasn't set up to detect fields of sufficient intensity - or if there was an under or over-voltage. In fact, the more information was encoded in a single spot the more likely it was to get lost. That didn't sound like a winning business strategy if the engine's calculations were rented out to organizations that couldn't afford their own analytical machinery.

While he hadn't been able to precisely measure the dimensions of the magnetic drum - hadn't needed to until just this moment - it was a comparatively simple operation to guess its length and circumference, and by extension its surface area. Divide that by the possible sizes of the read/write machinery, based on the size of the armatures proportional to the size of the drum, and adjust upwards by a few factors to account for redundancy - and downwards by the same number to account for technical advancements that engineers and scientists would have developed to get the most use out of the machinery. Crude and imprecise guesswork, but James scribbled it all down. Then he took the first page and started counting characters across the width of the sheet - the size of each letter, including the blank spaces, was uniform. Multiplying the number of characters per row by the number of rows, then multiplying that product by the number of pages printed out...

The math checked out. There was more than enough room for all of this information in the magnetic drum, ten times over. But all of this information could just as easily have been stored in a printed form; after all, it had been printed _out_. So why exactly had Mork mentioned having to put so much information into the engine in the first place? Even if all of the information for everyone in ECU's records couldn't be stored on physical paper, on physical shelves, there simply wasn't enough room on the magnetic drum for all of the alumni and faculty. At the upper end of the range James had calculated, the drum could store the same amount of information for nine more people, with a little left over. There were other storage drums, of course, and massive reels of paper tape he had seen that Mork had dismissed as old and out of date, but even so, that was an astounding amount of resources to devote to information for a single person.

And the information itself... James flipped through the pages again. Invoices for materials, shipping costs, and wages for labor. Records of telegrams sent and letters posted. Dates and times. Notifications of address changes. Even though James still wasn't sure what he was looking for, he was certainly noticing more this time around. The amount of money being thrown around was a lot more than he had figured his father would have been able to earn at any job he could think of, no matter how badly his skills and scientific knowledge was needed. And what was it all for? Steel rivets. Spools of copper cable. Pallets of bricks and concrete blocks. And those items that described the actual product were in the minority, at a glance well over three quarters of the items listed were just product codes used in the company's inventory system, though the name of the company could provide a few hints.

"It's too damned late for this many questions to be raised." James stacked the print out papers and shoved them into his satchel with the textbook and his notes, then snuffed out the light and felt his way to the bed. After a few hours of tossing, turning, and aimless mental wheel spinning and speculation, sleep finally found him.

**November 28, 1889, 11:33 AM**

Mork was not entirely surprised to find the letter stuck between two un-mortared bricks in the north wall of the second floor of the University Library. Granted, it didn't happen every day. It seldom happened more than once or twice a month. But each time he opened the envelope, decoded the instructions within, and followed them, there was usually another letter in the same spot within the next two or three days; a code that was valid at the telegram office to redeem a money transfer. Of course, he'd tried to trace them; after the first few times brought up nothing but dead ends - and one dead body which he didn't like to think about - he stopped looking gift money in the mouth. He was a student, after all. Some things are universal constants.

After decoding the instructions in this letter during his next class, though, he found himself wondering exactly what he had stepped in so many months ago, and how long he'd been sinking into it without realizing it.

_PRIMARY OBJECTIVE_

_RECOVER ECU ANALYTICAL ENGINE READOUTS FOR NOVEMBER TWENTY SEVEN BETWEEN SIXTEEN HUNDRED HOURS AND EIGHTEEN HUNDRED HOURS_

_SECONDARY OBJECTIVE_

_DETERMINE CAUSE OF LOCAL ENGINE OVERRIDE INCLUDING AUTHORIZATION AND POSSIBLE MOTIVE_

_PLACE COMPLETE FINDINGS IN DROP LOCATION SIX WITHIN THIRTY SIX HOURS _

Mork swallowed, or more accurately, tried and failed. There was some sort of obstruction in his throat which other physical sensations implied might be his heart. For a moment his imagination dragged him back to the dead man who he suspected was made thus so he would tell no tales, and in great detail replaced that dead man with the image of the man he saw in the mirror each day. Followed by that of his mother, at which point sheer bloody-minded orcish stubbornness, blended with the adaptive powers of human intellect, mercifully cut off any further visualizations.

If his mysterious benefactors and potential malefactors suspected him of anything they would have sent somebody to address the problem directly, the problem being him. Obviously by calling on his technical knowledge, they made it clear that they suspected technical issues, related to unauthorized use perhaps but ultimately focusing on the technical side of things. If he had inadvertently done something to draw their ire, they had inadvertently put him in the best possible position to conceal his involvement in it. And it followed logically that the more thorough and helpful he was in assisting them in finding what answers would not implicate him, the more likely they were to accept omissions in his findings as legitimate gaps of knowledge.

Of course, this could also be a test of loyalty set up to see if he'd come clean or attempt to conceal his actions, but if that was the case he was already too far along that path to do anything about it. Misdirection was still the best option. And if worse came to worst, well, his dad had taught him a few tricks... and he had just made a new friend - or at least acquaintance - whom spoke casually of inflicting violent acts on those who dared assault him.

Grinning to himself, Mork began writing out his own coded response.

**November 28, 1889, 2:20 PM**

"Mission accomplished sir. ECU sleeper agent dead drop instructions confirmed."

"Good." Winters picked up a pen and crossed out a single entry on a long, long list on his desk. "We're already behind, but maybe we can keep this pace just long enough."

"Sir, there's something else."

"Oh, Gods. Shouldn't have spoken so soon. Alright. I can take it."

"It's not another setback this time sir." The clerk handed over a few sheets of paper. "The simulation templates came back earlier today. We fed them back in with the key and got connection lines, action probabilities, high value geographic ranges, everything we could have hoped for. We were even able to run it through the pantographic coder."

"So you duplicated the results. Alright, that'll help us get the information sent out to the scout teams quicker than normal. Good initiative."

"Pardon me sir but we didn't just copy it. The pantographic coder overlays the information on a printed map. It's the last sheet in your summary, sir."

Winters flipped to the last page and sure enough, circles, lines, and symbols had been overlaid on a map of the southernmost half of Silverhead. "Amazing. Information at a glance. Much faster than lists of map coordinates and strings of degrees of separation."

"Thank you sir."

"Send this out to our scouts on the double. We've made up for lost time, but that just means we're back where we started." Winters turned away from the clerk and stared at the ornamental pistols on his wall. "And you can be sure we're not going to be so lucky a second time. If this is going to work, we need to find Dr. Cross, and soon."


End file.
